Inter struggles at Bologna again and is left level with Napoli atop Serie A
ROME (AP) — Inter Milan has a history of recent struggles at Bologna and Sunday proved no different.
Riccardo Orsolini's stoppage-time bicycle kick lifted Bologna to a 1-0 victory over the Serie A leader and left the Nerazzurri level with second-placed Napoli with five rounds remaining.
The defeat brought back memories of a goalkeeping blunder by Ionut Radu that gifted Bologna a victory three years ago, setting up the title for rival AC Milan. Inter also lost at Bologna the next season in a rain storm.
Inter won at Bologna last season but spent so much energy it couldn't recover in time before getting eliminated by Atletico Madrid in the Champions League four days later.
This time, the match was decided when a long throw-in was flicked on by Inter defender Yann Bisseck toward Orsolini, who turned it in with an acrobatic left-footed volley to send the Renato Dall'Ara into delirium.
Inter is chasing a treble this season and also faces big upcoming games in the Champions League and Italian Cup, but coach Simone Inzaghi had labeled the Bologna visit as the biggest match of the season.
Now the Nerazzurri are deadlocked with Antonio Conte's Napoli team, which isn't involved in any other competitions and can devote all of its energy toward chasing a second title in three years.
Napoli won 1-0 at last-placed Monza on Saturday to heap more pressure onto Inter.
Bologna moved up to fourth, one point ahead of Juventus, which visits Parma on Monday.
Inter next faces Milan in the second leg of the Italian Cup semifinals on Wednesday (the first leg finished 1-1). Then after Roma visits the San Siro next weekend, Inter travels to face Barcelona in the first leg of the Champions League semifinals.
And there could be another meeting with Bologna in the Cup final, after Bologna beat Empoli 3-0 in the first leg of the other semifinal.
AC Milan facing Atalanta
Earlier, Empoli and Venezia drew 2-2 – leaving both clubs in the relegation zone.
Milan was hosting Atalanta later Sunday.
___
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'He's someone who talks a lot, who exchanges, who explains his ideas and who tries to find the right position for every player. 'He works a lot tactically. He spends his days at the training centre, from morning to night. He's football crazy. That's something that I appreciated because to really succeed, you have to have that passion, that determination, that desire, that ambition. 'We hit it off straight away, and we talked a lot. He asked me, as the most experienced player, to lift the team up and bring the other players along with me. That's what we did. 'Everyone knows the coach De Zerbi is. He was at Brighton and did great things. In Italy, he has a reputation. He must have received a lot of offers. He's been very important this season for Marseille and I think that the French league is lucky to have a coach like him here.' 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Put yourself in this zone, do this, do that'. That's where he's good — it's almost like he knows how the match is going to unfold before it's even happened.' Rabiot's five years at Juventus were ideal preparation for working under a coach as tactically meticulous as De Zerbi. The Frenchman was 24 when he arrived in Turin in 2019 and was widely perceived as something of an enigma. He had left his formative club PSG after being frozen out of the first-team squad halfway through the season for refusing to sign a new contract. He had also been sidelined at international level by France coach Didier Deschamps after rejecting a place on the standby list for their triumphant 2018 World Cup campaign. After winning a ninth consecutive Serie A title in Rabiot's first season, there were no further major trophies beyond a pair of Coppa Italia wins in 2021 and 2024. He nevertheless finished his spell at the club strongly under Massimiliano Allegri, who appointed him vice-captain in 2023, and says that his half-decade in northern Italy opened his eyes to the demands at the very highest level. 'It was an important step in my career,' Rabiot says. 'It was a period when I gained maturity and when I took on the mentality that they develop at Juventus: work, selflessness, sacrifice. They're things that you learn and that become part of you. Advertisement 'My time at Juventus was very useful to me. It allowed me to grow up a huge amount. I experienced great things, I won titles. But it's also the people I worked with, the players I played with. 'I think of the players who were there when I arrived — the Cristiano Ronaldos, the Gigi Buffons, the Giorgio Chiellinis, the (Leonardo) Bonuccis. They're players who have that mentality, and they transmit it. They were examples for me.' Twenty-five years before Rabiot's move to Juventus, another industrious French central midfielder had crossed the Alps to hone his trade during a five-year spell in Turin. Deschamps joined Juventus from Marseille in 1994 and has credited his own experience of Italian football with enabling him to develop the fierce winner's mentality that has since become his trademark. Deschamps brought Rabiot's two years of international exile to an end in September 2020 and the midfielder has since become one of his principal lieutenants, forming part of France's first-choice XI at both the 2022 World Cup and Euro 2024. 'When I first came in, I was very young,' says Rabiot, who was 21 when he won the first of his 53 France caps in November 2016. 'So inevitably, you don't have the experience and all the things I might have now that enable you to have a relationship with a coach. 'The more experienced players who had been here for longer had a different kind of relationship with him. Little by little, that kind of relationship develops through the moments you spend together and the tournaments you play in. 'Now we have a relationship where we're able to say things to each other. There's real trust between us. For a national coach, I think it's important to have players you can lean on and say things to.' Having turned 30 in April, Rabiot is one of the oldest and most experienced members of the current squad. With youngsters such as Desire Doue, Bradley Barcola, Warren Zaire-Emery and Rayan Cherki all in the foothills of their international careers, he now finds himself being looked up to in the same way that he looked up to his battle-hardened former Juventus team-mates during his early days in Turin. Advertisement 'For me it's about setting an example on the pitch,' says Rabiot, who was speaking before France's remarkable 5-4 defeat by Spain in the UEFA Nations League semi-finals. 'Showing that when you arrive here, you have to give everything, whether it's in training or matches, and having that mentality of always wanting to win for France. 'Knowing that the collective is more important than any individual, that we're all together, whether we win or lose. Showing those values and trying to transmit them. It's an important role to have with certain players as one of the older players in the team.' Rabiot has been advised by his mother, Veronique, since the very beginning of his career. She took the lead after Adrien's father, Michel Provost, suffered a severe stroke in 2007 that left him with locked-in syndrome and she has succeeded in carving out a reputation as a formidable negotiator. 'She's always supported me,' Rabiot says. 'She's always been by my side and she's always said: 'You concentrate on your football and what happens on the pitch. I'll handle everything else.' 'For a footballer, there are things that can get into your head because there are so many things you have to manage around you. Sometimes you don't know who to delegate that to. It can be a weight. 'Straight away, my mother was there to manage everything going on around me and to leave me to focus on the pitch. That's what's enabled me to advance in the way that I have and to have the success I've had. 'She's always been very ambitious. She wants the best for me, and she's always done things as I've asked her to. That's important because maybe with other people, people from outside the family, things wouldn't have worked out like that. 'She's very professional and meticulous, in the same way that I am. We take after each other a lot.' When Rabiot returned to the Parc des Princes to face PSG in March, both he and his mother were targeted by abusive chants and banners that made crude references to his late father, who died in 2019. In an Instagram post, Rabiot told PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi: 'You can't buy class.' The Rabiot family subsequently announced their intention to take legal action against those responsible for the abuse, while French Football Federation president Philippe Diallo told AFP the abuse was 'disgraceful and appalling'. Advertisement It is not the first time Veronique has found herself in the spotlight, having long been caricatured in the French media over her uncompromising stewardship of her son's career. Given everything the family has been through, seeing her publicly criticised must hurt. 'Yes, of course,' Rabiot says. 'But whether it's her or me, we've built tough shells. Because in this environment, you have to be armed. 'On that level, she's exceptional too because she doesn't let anything get in, she's focused on her objectives, and it doesn't matter what people might be saying around her. 'If she's convinced that something is the right choice and she's doing the right thing, she'll do it and she won't be intimidated by what's happening externally. 'You have to have a rock-solid mindset, and she does, notably because of the things we've been through together in our family. They are things that have forged us, and on that level, she's unbeatable.'
