The ballad of Bobby Wood

When I started this career I had some targets, after what happened this season I have no more, this season changed everything.

You read it well, I can't do anything better with this squad, this was the perfect season and I consider the following moment to be the turning point that let everything happen...

The match was almost finished at Nou Camp, 2-2 the result of this semifinal (first leg), then Vermaelen badly missed a ball and we won 3-2.

Bobby Wood, the hero of the season, scored the second and the third goal.

1. I cheated
2. I'm a suberb tactician
3. Insert here the conspiracy theory you prefer
4. The Maya! The Maya have to be involved in this...

I'm not sure about the answer, you could pick one or more of the available choices and maybe you could obtain the right one.

Of course I think something devilish must have happened here, honestly I can't remember such a season so early and with such a team, In the Europa league we defeated Rapid Wien (sorry Shrewnaldo, but they're crap!) but after we prevailed over Sevilla, Leicester, Barcelona, Inter and Tottenham in the final, not an easy journey.

In the Coppa Italia final we demolished Juventus 4-1, the same happened in the league where we won by 6 point over Juve again.

I love to think that Bobby Wood is the man behid this unreal season (even if Mattia Destro wasn't bad at all and scored 24 goals), he joined us in the summer from Hamburg for 2.1 M, I needed some strikers and I thought he was cheap and good enough to play in serie A.

He needed some time to understand Italian football and know his teammates but when the key games finally arrived, he was like a hurricane, his goals were all key goals in vital matches.

The perfect defensive forward?

This is the tactic we played all the season long, after I tried with no success a 3-4-1-2 in my pre-season friendlies, it's a simple 4-3-1-2 (fluid shape and standard mentality) with the following six team instructions:

• shorter passing
• play out of defence
• work ball into the box
• play narrower
• push higher up
• prevent short GK distribution

Add to these settings few players instructions: my two Dc's have "close down less" and "mark tighter", the left Mc has "close down more" and "get further forward" while the man in the hole has "more direct passes" and "close down more".

Playing this way I had a first line of pressing with four men involved (the strikers, the Amc and the left Mc) very useful to force defensive mistakes and misplaced balls that my other 2 Mc's could recover with ease.

Did you play all your games with these settings?

No, otherwise the game would be flawed, anyway I didn't make too many changes on a game by game basis, I started almost every game with the settings I described above, but I often changed my mentality facing different in-game scenarios during the same match, control and counter being the more used after the standard one.

2017-18 Bologna best eleven, quite unimpressive uh?

Now let me go, I still need to think about this superb season, if you have questions feel free to ask.

Regards and beware, Booby Wood is watching you!