Bologna FC 1909 3-3 FC Internazionale Milano: Serie A Match Report

Six goals on the final weekend, and the champions did not win: Bologna FC 1909 3-3 FC Internazionale Milano. Bologna led 2-1 at half-time, Inter came back to level it, and the match finished with both sides having scored three — the highest-scoring and loosest fixture of the closing round.

The context explains most of it. Inter went into the closing weekend top of Serie A on 87 points with a goal difference of +54, seventeen clear of second-placed Napoli. The title was mathematically settled before either team took the field here, which removes the single strongest incentive a leader normally carries into a season's final fixtures. Bologna arrived eighth on 56 after beating Atalanta the previous week, playing for position and pride rather than anything decisive.

A 2-1 interval score becoming 3-3 tells you the second half was as open as the first, and that both teams scored on either side of the break. Neither defence held, neither attack stopped finding the net, and the match settled into the trade-off you get when nothing hangs on the outcome: entertaining, unstructured, and eventually shared.

Very little, which is precisely what made it what it was. Inter had already won the league — 87 points against Napoli's 70 put the Scudetto beyond arithmetic before this weekend began — and a point added to a total that had stopped carrying meaning. The result did not even move the goal difference: a 3-3 leaves that column exactly where it found it, with Inter's +54 the best in the division by a distance.

Bologna closed on 57 points, which left them in the upper half but short of the European conversation. Atalanta, two ahead on 59, missed it too; the places above went to Napoli on 76, Roma on 73 and Como on 71. For a side whose +3 goal difference had described a season of narrow results, finishing by trading six goals with the champions was an unlikely way to sign off.

Our pre-match call was Both Teams to Score at 1.75. It landed, and it landed inside the first half — the 2-1 interval score confirms both teams had already found the net by the break. The reasoning was that a champion with nothing left to play for and a mid-table host with nothing to lose is a poor recipe for defensive discipline, and that Inter's +54 goal difference described an attack that scored in almost every fixture regardless of circumstance. Both halves of that held. Six goals was considerably more than the bet required, but the direction was right for the reasons we gave. Verdict: won