Benjamin Dominguez returned to full training on the morning before the Bologna vs Roma match at Stadio Dall’Ara, a last-minute development ahead of Saturday evening’s fourth and final meeting between the sides this season.
The two clubs enter the game locked on results this term: each has won once and the teams drew once in their three previous contests. Roma took the most recent Serie A meeting 1-0 at home last August, while Bologna edged the pair in Europe — beating Roma 5-4 on aggregate after a second leg at the Stadio Olimpico, the first leg of that tie having finished 1-1.
Those numbers matter because they sit atop a stretch that will decide both clubs’ immediate priorities. Roma are sixth in the table and sit five points behind fourth-placed Juventus with five games remaining, still chasing a top-four finish. Bologna, by contrast, are already trailing far behind Serie A’s top six with five rounds left, have been eliminated from the Coppa Italia and were dumped out of the Europa League before this weekend’s league fixture.
Form and recent results sharpen the stakes: Bologna were beaten 2-0 by Juventus last week and have lost six of their eight league fixtures at the Dall’Ara in 2026. Roma drew 1-1 at home with Atalanta last week but have lost their last three top-flight away fixtures — a worrying trend given the five-game sprint to the season’s finish.
Injuries and training nuances add selection uncertainty. Bologna are missing Lukasz Skorupski, Nicolò Casale and Thijs Dallinga, and OneFootball reported those three trained separately the morning before the match. OneFootball also reported that tests on Federico Bernardeschi revealed a strain to his right iliacus muscle and that the striker faces a 2–3 week recovery window; Bernardeschi has suffered a muscular injury, the outlet said.
The contrast between Bologna’s European scalp of Roma and their uneven league form points to the central tension: the sides have already traded meaningful results this season, but those results have landed in different competitions and at different costs. Bologna’s 5-4 aggregate Europa League win proved they can hurt Roma over two legs, yet that success did not translate into consistency at the Dall’Ara or in domestic cup play. Roma still have the clearer mathematical path to a Champions League spot, but recent away defeats undercut that straightforward narrative.
Squad news deepens the unpredictability. Dominguez’s late return to full training gives his side a boost on paper, while the separate sessions for Skorupski, Casale and Dallinga underline ongoing doubts that could force changes to lineups announced on match day. Bernardeschi’s reported iliacus strain, with an estimated 2–3 week layoff, also narrows options for whoever must plug his role.
With five league rounds remaining, this match is less a moment of reprise and more a measuring stick: can Roma arrest a worrying away run and close a five-point gap in five games, or will Bologna convert the momentum of their European victory into late-season domestic repair despite a poor record at the Dall’Ara? That question — not which side has won this season’s previous fixtures, but which one arrives at the run-in in form to make it count — is the decisive one heading into Saturday evening.
