Siamo in marcia con l’esercito di Unai
Playing in Europe’s nothing special these days, particularly when it’s against a team we brushed aside this time last year in the Champions League. The logical thing would be to say Bologna will therefore show what’s happened since then. Football doesn’t do logic.
Last season we pointed out a coupe of similarities, namely that they’ve won the league seven times, six of them almost in pre-history, and have had a varying array of owners good, bad and indifferent. Since then they’ve done something that sets them apart from us forever. That’s right, they’ve won the cup.
Other things that haven’t changed since the heady days of 2024 are a Scottish captain whose brother’s career dropped as low as any footballer could sink, before improving to finish his playing days at Clyde. Talking of careers taking a nosedive, they haven’t got Samuel Iling-Junior, currently in non-league. Their manager definitely sounds like he should be a Soprano.
And we’ve got… Again, nobody really knows. It won’t be until we get the team news that we’ll know for certain how seriously Unai’s taking this competition, although he must surely be making it close to our main priority.
However seriously he thinks if it, though, we’re still likely to have our lowest gate since the Everton debacle of ’23. The way we’re playing will be a factor, the legalised extortion masquerading as ticket prices will certainly make a difference. And I wonder whether we’ll be seeing the downside of courting the type of Newfootie fans who think the only shows in town are the Premier and Champions Leagues and everything else is unimportant.
But please let’s not have any of that better fan than yeow daftness. The media are looking at Villa to be the next Crisis Club, Birmingham Live are sharpening their claws. Whatever the result, we’re all in this together. Not that the outcome is in any doubt. Do it for Monchi.
