It’s time for the Derby dell’Appennino. Ready? No? Well, hopefully Fiorentina is, given that the team’s shown signs of life lately, taking 8 points from its past 5 games. Bologna, on the other hand, has
taken just 5 points from its last 5 and generally looking pretty fragile. As we all know, though, current form goes out the window during the derby, and that goes double for facing ex-mister Vincenzo Italiano’s version of the Oscar Meyers, especially since Paolo Vanoli will be watching from the stands after getting sent off against Milan last week, leaving lieutenant Daniele Cavalletto to run the show.
The match will be played on Sunday, 18 January 2026, at 14:00 GMT/9:00 AM EST at the Stadio Renato dell’Ara in Bologna. The forecast calls for a gray day and potentially a bit of rain but nothing too extreme. It’s worth mentioning, too, that the away section’s 2500 tickets are sold out. Maybe that’s just regular excitement for the derby or maybe the Viola fans are starting to get behind their side again after a couple vaguely competent outings.
Three things to watch for
1. First starts for the new signings
Fiorentina’s been quite busy in the January mercato, as you’d expect from a team that had European aspirations but sits in the relegation places. In have come Manor Solomon and Marco Brescianini are in the fold with Jack Harrison and a couple more signings to come. Let’s focus on the pair currently in the fold, though, as both came off the bench last week against AC Milan. I expect them to replace Fabiano Parisi and Cher Ndour, respectively.
What that means for this particular game is interesting. Italiano’s Bologna will press intensely, of course, and Solomon’s pace could offer Fiorentina a release valve. He’ll probably stay high and wide on the right, stretching play to prevent opponents from collapsing on Moise Kean in the middle. The Israel international’s battle with Juan Miranda should be quite interesting, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he got the freedom to switch wings occasionally. Even so, his wide positioning should encourage Dodô to tuck in even more than usual.
Brescianini’s job is trickier to parse. Ndour hasn’t been great this year but his brief—drop in as the holding midfielder, cover Albert Guðmundsson and Robin Gosens defensively, make big runs over the top, and pull wide so Guðmundsson can drift central—has been as difficult as anyone’s in Serie A. I’ll be very interested to see if Brescianini’s absorbed the plan enough to replace Ndour, especially since he’s never been as much an off-ball player, given that his dribbling through the middle has always been his standout quality.
2. Fagioli’s level
Over the past month, Nicolò Fagioli has come into his own, serving as Fiorentina’s creative hub and emerging as perhaps its most important player. He’s almost solely responsible for getting the ball from back to front, which means he’s constantly dropping between the defenders to pick up the ball and also looking for the killer pass in the final third. Dodô’s helped with the former and Guðmundsson with the latter but this has been the Nicky Beans show.
Against Bologna, he’ll have two challenges. The first is exploiting the high Rossoblu line with his passes over the top; he’s done that really well all year, creating a number of chances that Kean and Roberto Piccoli have squandered. The second is evading that furious Italiano press. Jens Odgaard and Lewis Ferguson aren’t languid number 10s; they both relish the unglamorous closing down and, if they can fetter Fagioli, Fiorentina’s odds of getting out of its own half, much less scoring, will plummet.
3. A little character
The Renato dall’Ara has been raucous the previous 160 times Fiorentina’s made the trip over the mountains and there’s no reason to expect any difference on Sunday. Indeed, I almost expect some extra vinegar from the Oscar Meyer faithful: they haven’t seen their team win a Serie A game at home since mid-November and, as Bologna slides down the standings (currently in 8th and out of the European places), they’ll be even more desperate for a good result than usual.
Into that cauldron comes the most mentally-fragile team in Italy. Sure, this cowardly lion’s seen the wizard and obtained something vaguely approximating courage over the past couple weeks, but coughing up stoppage time equalizers in its past two outings would be evidence of a team that can’t stay switched on. The nature of those mistakes is even more damning. To get anything from this, Fiorentina can’t afford those brain farts. They’re most obvious at the back—blown assignments on set pieces, silly little fouls in the box, failure to track runners—but the bad giveaways farther forward and the horrendous finishing are symptoms of the same team-wide idiocy.
Possible lineups
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Ted’s Memorial Blind Guess Department
Predictably, the hosts are favorite. You can’t blame the bookies for leaning that way when 10 places separate the sides in the table. The line’s closer than you might expect but the respective momentum these two teams have generated recently means you could give Fiorentina a better chance than expected. To be clear, I don’t recommend this because Fiorentina is a bad team and betting on it will lose you money; the aforementioned mental fragility means it’ll probably fold like newspaper in a tough environment.
With that out of the way, I predict a 1-2 win for the Viola, with Kean striking in the first half on the break and Rolando Mandragora smashing one home from distance in stoppage time, with a Bologna defender of your choice scoring in the last 5 minutes off a set piece. I’m also expecting some fireworks: in 3 meetings between these two, Italiano took over at the dell’Ara, we’ve seen 17 yellow and 2 red cards, including a sending off for Emil Holm and a donnybrook between Edin Džeko and Jhon Lucumí in the reverse fixture. Simply put, these teams dislike each other.
Forza Viola!
