Bologna, owned by Canadian Joe Saputo, won the Coppa Italia last night by defeating Milan, which is controlled by the American investment fund RedBird Capital Partners led by U.S. businessman Gerry Cardinale.
This triumph by the Rossoblù is well-deserved and the result of serious and competent club planning. It proves that even overseas owners can achieve virtuous results in Italian football.
Following Atalanta, owned by Steven Pagliuca, who lifted the Europa League trophy last season, Bologna, under Joe Saputo, managed to win in Rome by deservedly defeating an underwhelming Milan side that exposed all the flaws already seen throughout a season described by Milan’s CEO Furlani as a “failure.”
Bologna’s victory, lifting the Coppa Italia after 51 years, shares several common elements with Atalanta’s success last year. Neither was a fluke; both are the product of clear planning and a well-defined club identity.
Atalanta, whose majority stake passed in 2022 to New Yorker Steven Pagliuca, continued to entrust the sporting management of the team to the Percassi family, which had long built a virtuous cycle.
Joe Saputo’s Bologna, under his control since 2014, found the right formula in 2022 after some years of learning the ropes in Italian football. That year, they brought in Giovanni Sartori, formerly of Atalanta, as Head of Technical Area. Sartori, a man of great footballing expertise, revolutionized the club’s vision and performance, helping Bologna qualify for the Champions League last season and win a trophy this year after more than half a century.
Sartori as Head of Technical Area, Marco Di Vaio as Sporting Director, and Claudio Fenucci as CEO are not random choices. They reflect the ownership’s decision to delegate the sporting aspect of the club to experienced and knowledgeable Italian professionals who understand the dynamics of Italian football. Just as Atalanta’s American ownership relies on the Percassi family, Bologna has embraced a locally rooted management capable of handling challenges and strategic planning.
Two signs are significant, and a third begins to make a trend: in the 2021–22 season, Milan—under American fund Elliott—won their most recent Scudetto by entrusting technical and sporting leadership to Paolo Maldini and Frederic Massara. That title remains their only one since the Berlusconi era. After Maldini and Massara were inexplicably dismissed by new owners RedBird, who took over in August 2022, Milan have not won anything—except the Italian Super Cup in Riyadh (a modest consolation)—and have made a series of technical and managerial missteps that have alienated their fan base.
In terms of poor choices, Roma under the Friedkin family has not fared much better. Taking over the club in August 2020, Dan Friedkin invested hundreds of millions of euros without ever qualifying for the Champions League. Roma did win the inaugural Conference League in 2022 in Tirana—their first European trophy in over 60 years—and came within inches of winning the Europa League the following year (a controversial loss in the final in Budapest, thanks in no small part to English referee Taylor…), but those successes were more the result of José Mourinho’s cup savvy than of any cutting-edge planning or sound sporting structure.
The sporting director “casting calls” conducted in 2021 and 2023 using “algorithms” led to the appointments of the young Portuguese Tiago Pinto, who had never served as a sporting director at Benfica, and then Florent Ghisolfi, a promising Frenchman but a complete newcomer to Italian football. It’s no coincidence that this season, Claudio Ranieri—who, with his wealth of experience and the promise of a future executive role, served as both coach and de facto manager—managed to turn things around after a disastrous start to the season.
Roma under the Friedkins, like Milan under RedBird, has never managed to build a technical and sporting structure capable of delivering consistent results. Even Mourinho repeatedly complained about being left “alone.”
In Italian football, clubs with American ownership have only achieved sustained success when they relied on competent Italian football executives who know the environment inside and out: Atalanta with Percassi, Bologna with Sartori and Di Vaio, Milan with Maldini and Massara, and, of course, Inter. When U.S. fund Oaktree took over Inter from Zhang, they stuck with the Marotta-Ausilio duo and kept on winning. Inter fans, meanwhile, hope that winning trend continues in Munich—but that’s another story.
L’articolo Bologna wins the Coppa Italia: there is a “successful American model” in Serie A proviene da Soccer Made In Italy.
