Bologna’s remembrance for Sinisa Mihajlovic

The memory of Bologna

Bologna, the last club led by Sinisa Mihajlovic, through its official channels wanted to express its condolences for the passing of the Serbian coach, who was on the bench of the Felsinei first in the 2008-09 season and then from 2019 until Sept. 6, 2022.

“Sinisa Mihajlovic left us today, at the age of 53, after a long and moving battle with leukemia. Bologna Fc 1909 mourns the coach who led the Rossoblù until last September.

Sinisa Mihajlovic was born in Vukovar on February 20, 1969, and it was in Bologna that he began his coaching career in 2008, after successes as a player with Red Star, Roma, Sampdoria, Lazio and Inter Milan. And on the Bologna bench he had returned in January 2019, leading the team to tenth place after an incredible chase for safety ended with 30 points won in the 17 matches of his management.

But right at the start of the following season, on July 13, 2019, came the news that shocked the club, fans and all soccer fans: Mihajlovic announced in an emotional press conference at Casteldebole that he had contracted an acute form of leukemia. His hospitalization and the heavy treatment he is undergoing do not prevent him from continuing his work: the club confirms from the first moment its intention to continue with Mihajlovic, he follows the team from a distance and communicates with the players thanks to technology and the constant mediation of his staff of collaborators. After 44 days of hospitalization, Mihajlovic surprisingly leaves the hospital on August 25 to sit on the bench at the Bentegodi stadium in Verona for the first league trip.

For three more seasons, Mihajlovic continued to lead the Rossoblù, but on March 26 he was forced to report the reappearance of the illness and subsequent re-hospitalization. In September the painful decision by the club to relieve him of his duties: “The most difficult choice,” says Joey Saputo, “since I have been president of Bologna.”

In these months Sinisa continued to struggle away from the spotlight, surrounded by the affection of his wonderful family. He wanted to live, he wanted to return to the soccer fields, which had been his life since he was a child. He didn’t make it, Mihajlovic, yet he won this time as well. He won by the example he set for us. He won by not hiding his own weaknesses and very human fears. Mihajlovic, whom so many liked to call ‘the warrior,’ won with the gentleness of fragility, teaching younger people that true strength lies not in feeling invincible, but in always trying to get back up.

In Bologna we lived together with him three and a half wonderful and terrible years, in a state of mind that does not usually accompany the carefree affairs of football. Not only the club, but the whole city accompanied him as much as it could on this hard journey: the City Council gave him honorary citizenship, the fans addressed their wishes for his recovery to heaven by going up in procession to the basilica of San Luca, the place of the soul of all Bolognese. Bolognesi who mourn you today, Sinisa, ideally embracing Arianna and your children, knowing full well that a ‘fellow citizen’ like this, once he enters everyone’s heart, will remain there forever. More alive, more victorious than ever.

Hello Mister,” the statement from the red and blue club….