Bologna

The Stadio Renato Dall'Ara sits on the Colli Bolognesi, and its stands hold anywhere from 36,532 to 38,279 depending on how the seats are configured for a given match, a sign of a ground built for another era and adjusted since. Bologna have played there since the stadium's early years, long enough that the arena and the club are hard to separate in the city's memory.

The club formed on 3 October 1909, and by the interwar years it had become one of the dominant sides in Italy. Herman Felsner built the first title-winning teams through the 1920s, and Árpád Weisz took over in the 1930s to add three more championships in short order — five titles across two managerial spells inside little more than a decade, out of seven league championships Bologna have won in total, the last of them in 1963–64. Domestic silverware since has come mostly through the Coppa Italia, most recently in 2024–25, a first cup win in over fifty years that also carried the club to the Supercoppa Italiana final, where Napoli beat them 2–0.

Angelo Schiavio remains the reference point among the players who wore rossoblù: 242 league goals, the club's all-time top scorer, and a member of the Italy side that won the 1934 World Cup as its captain. Giacomo Bulgarelli, by contrast, is remembered for staying — 488 official appearances, still the club record.

Juventus have long been the rival that matters most nationally, but the fixture with the sharper local edge is against Parma, the Derby dell'Emilia. There is also Modena, in the Derby della Cesta, and Fiorentina across the Apennines. What Bologna have not managed since the 1960s is a return to the Serie A title itself — the Coppa Italia and the Intertoto Cup they won in 1998 have filled the cabinet since, but the scudetto has stayed out of reach for six decades.