Fortitudo Bologna

Fortitudo have been out of Serie A since 2022, when the side that had climbed back into the top flight in 2019 went down again. The club has already done the climb once, and it started from a lower rung than most clubs ever see.

In 2009 the club was relegated to the fourth tier (Serie A Dilettanti) over financial irregularities. It was expelled from the federation in 2012 and the original entity was dissolved. A new company, Fortitudo Pallacanestro Bologna 103 S.r.l., was set up in 2013. It took over the name, the supporters and the honours of the club founded in 1932, and it began again in the fourth division. Promotion to Serie A took six years.

The honours it inherited come from a short, dense period. Fortitudo won the Italian Cup in 1998 and the Italian league in 2000 and 2005. The 2004 EuroLeague final is the one that got away: Maccabi Tel Aviv won it. Toni Kukoč played in Bologna in 1998–99, and Marco Belinelli came up through the academy.

Every game against Virtus Bologna, the Derby di Bologna or Derby della Panca, is played in front of the Fossa dei Leoni. The club's task is the same one it faced in 2013: getting back into Serie A.