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AC Milan will begin their bid to reclaim the Scudetto at Bologna's Stadio Renato Dall'Ara on Monday, after putting up a poor title defense last season.
In June, the Rossoneri finished fourth, 20 points behind winners Napoli, but they now begin a new season against one of their favorite opponents.
Milan's 2022-23 season, ultimately disappointed by their chronic inconsistency and weaknesses at both ends of the pitch, could not live up to the events of the previous year, when they completed their return to the top of Calcio.
Stefano Pioli's team just scraped into Serie A's top four, and a heartbreaking departure in the Champions League semi-finals to city rivals Inter only helped to compound their fans' dissatisfaction.
Milan have had a turbulent summer, with supposed future captain Sandro Tonali swapping San Siro for the Premier League, cult hero Zlatan Ibrahimovic hanging up his boots after an emotional farewell, and club legend Paolo Maldini leaving under a cloud following several failures in the transfer market.
Pioli will be relieved to return to the task of keeping a youthful Rossoneri team competitive at the sharp end of Serie A after a pre-season tour in the United States that included defeats to Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Juventus. Several fresh acquisitions should assist in that respect.
With the arrivals of Samuel Chukwueze, Yunus Musah, and Christian Pulisic at Milanello in recent weeks, Pioli prepares his team for a first-day meeting against Bologna, whom Milan last played on the first day of the season three years ago, when Ibrahimovic scored both goals in a 2-0 triumph at San Siro.
Milan have won all three Serie A season openers under Pioli, and having lost just one of their past 27 league encounters with Bologna - winning 19 of them - precedent will be stacked in their favor on Monday evening.
Bologna has lost 12 of their past 17 Serie A games at Stadio Dall'Ara.
Thiago Motta's team will now look to halt such a terrible run and record the Rossoblu's first home win against Milan since March 2002, after impressing periodically last season when the ex-Inter player took charge only a few weeks in.
Bologna finished ninth in the final standings, never truly challenging for European qualification, although they surrendered the joint-fewest goals at home - 14, tied with Inter - and improved on three successive bottom-half finishes.
After a difficult pre-season that finished with a 1-0 loss to AZ, Motta's side defeated Cesena 2-0 in their first competitive match of 2023-24, advancing to the Coppa Italia's second round courtesy to goals from teenage full-back Tommaso Corazza and Dutch attacker Joshua Zirkzee.
As Bologna begin life without star striker Marko Arnautovic, who made his farewell Rossoblu appearance in the cup before returning to Inter, where he had a brief stint earlier in his peripatetic career, the latter may have to pick up some goalscoring slack.
Despite taking only one point from Milan last season and having such a poor record against the Rossoneri, Bologna may take comfort in the fact that they have only lost one of their previous five games.
