Italiano: ‘Not easy for Bologna to fight back, penalties are a lottery’

Vincenzo Italiano admits it was ‘not easy’ for Bologna to recover from their nightmare start, but ‘the draw was the fair result and penalties are a lottery’ when eliminating Inter.

The Rossoblu had never been in the Supercoppa Italiana before, as the tournament was only created after their last piece of silverware, but now they will face Napoli in the Final in Riyadh on Monday evening.

It was 1-1 after 90 minutes, so went to a penalty shoot-out, which was ultimately decided by veteran Ciro Immobile after a bizarre run with five consecutive failed attempts.

“This is why we signed Ciro, to score penalties like that!” Italiano told Sport Mediaset.

“He came off the bench and was the fifth man up because he’s so used to these situations. He was out for such a long time, but has been back in the squad for a month or so, and he was decisive, just as he has been over the years. I was starting to think that goal was cursed, with all the misses in a row.”

They had to fight back from a nightmare start, as Marcus Thuram had opened the scoring after 73 seconds, but Riccardo Orsolini converted a penalty for Yann Bisseck’s handling offence.

“Starting with that handicap is not easy, but we kept out heads, managed to equalise and I felt our first half was excellent,” noted Italiano.

“Inter were better in the second, but one half each means the draw was a fair result and then penalties is a lottery, so you need a bit of luck.

“It was 1-1 on the field, we won the shoot-out, and that was not easy because when Inter take control of a game, it is hard to get the ball off them. We lost intensity in the second half and Inter raised the pressure, so every time we tried to counter, they blocked us off. We were pinned back for long periods, but we were up against a side made of champions, so we knew there would be periods like that,” continued Italiano.

“In a way, going behind so early gave us that extra furore to fight back and be determined on every ball in the first half. Our style means you can take some risks, attack is the best form of defence to keep the more talented opponents away from our penalty area, but it’s tough to keep that up for 90 minutes and sometimes you need to defend too.”

Bologna beat Napoli in Serie A only a few weeks ago, so the Final is by no means a foregone conclusion, just as they were not expected to get the better of Inter this evening.