After article by Georgiy Kudinov, Aleksandr Kuz'min
of Sport-Express. 06.09.1999

Bologna soccer players, who arrived in St. Petersburg Tuesday night,
were able to sleep in yesterderday in their comfortable rooms at "Nevsky
Palace". After a late breakfast, the majority of the players chose to
take a walk around the city. Only Giuseppe Signori stayed in his room,
more unhappy with St. Pete's chilly weather than others. The Italians
walked through the historic center of the city on the shores of the Neva
river.

Cruiser Aurora [which in 1917 gave the signal for the storm of the
Winter Palace, a decisive event in the Russian revolution -translator's
note] was of particular interest to the Bologna players: goalkeeper
Gianluca Pagliuca spent almost an hour on the legendary ship, even going
down to the engine room. Only the Swede, Klass Ingesson, made the
traditional purchase of visiting Italian soccer players - a Russian fur
hat - and he bought a gigantic one. Then, after walking around the
Fields of Mars and visiting the church of Savior-on-the-Blood, the
italians returned to their hotel - just in time for dinner.

Then the players retired to their rooms, while coach Sergio Buso headed
to a press conference, accompanied by Nicola Ventola, the team's leading
striker. Buso responded to questions politely, but did not talk too
much.

"We have carefully analyzed Zenit's last game in the Russian
championship,"underlined Bologna's coach."The St. Petersburg team
seemed solid. I will name some of those who, in my opinion, play a
leading role in the team: Ovsepian, Panov, Maksimuk, Kobelev, Kurtiyan
and goalkeeper Berezovsky (Bologna's coach pronounced all of the last
names clearly and correctly - note by G.K. and A.K.). I cannot name
Bologna's formation for tomorrow's game. I simply have not decided yet.
I always decide after analyzing the results of the last training
session, which shows the functional readiness of the players at present.
You will see it all on the field."

"You are staying in one of the best hotels of St. Petersburg, yet you
brought a cook and some food with you from Italy. You don't trust the
Russian cuisine?"

"That's not the reason. It is just that our players are used to a
special menu, some ingredients of which can be obtained only in Italy."

A question for Ventola:"What do you think, will it be harder for
Bologna to play Zenit than it was for your former club Inter to play
Spartak?"

"I have vivid memories of the two games against Spartak," said the
21-year-old forward. "Unfortunately, I don't know much about the
strengths and weaknesses of Zenit. All the information about the club
comes from our coach."

After the press conference ended, one of us spoke to Sergio Buso. The
head coach of Bologna displayed excellent knowledge of Zenit's style of
play and even named the permanent numbers of the players' shirts without
hesitation.

Bologna's only training session started yesterday at 19:40. Instead of
the planned hour, it went on for an hour and a half. After warming up,
the players started a game vaguely resembling handball, except that
goals could be scored only with headers. However, no one was able to
score in this way.

After some stretching exercises, Buso broke up the team into two groups
of ten for a mini-game. Players were allowed only one touch of the ball.
The only goal into Pagliuca's net came from the famous Beppe-Gol,
Signori. ...

The Italians left the stadium only around 21:30, satisfied with the good
condition of the field. Ze Elias asked to say hello to Robson, a former
teammate of his, now playing for Spartak Moscow. And Giuseppe Signori,
wearing gloves, lamented the cold again.

Translated by Julia Tarasova.