Welcome to Calcio Square, a reader-supported newsletter dedicated to Serie A and Italian football. Thursdays are usually reserved for classic match reviews, but for today only, I'm offering my reaction to Bologna's Coppa Italia win over AC Milan. The classic match review will hit your inbox Friday.

THE COPPA ITALIA MEANT different things to Bologna and AC Milan. For Bologna, a win promised to end a 51-year wait for major silverware and continue the work they started when they qualified for the Champions League last May. For Milan, victory offered salvation at the end of a season that's likely to yield no European football at all.

Bologna and Milan had found themselves in similar situations around this time last year. Both teams needed a manager and had significant holes to fill following the departure of key players. Riccardo Calafiori, Joshua Zirzkee, and Marko Arnautovic were about to leave Bologna, while Olivier Giroud and Simon Kjaer, the core of Milan's leadership group, moved on.

But Bologna already had a solid system in place. They had braced for Zirkzee's exit the previous January, signing forward Santiago Castro and attacking midfielder Jens Odgaard during the winter transfer window. They then added promising attackers Thijs Dallinga and Benja Dominguez, and reinforced their defense with full-backs Juan Miranda and Emil Holm. None of these signings cost more than €15 million. Most of them are now worth more than double what Bologna originally paid.

That's because technical director Giovanni Sartori knows what he's doing. He's made a career of buying talent low and selling it high. Sartori signed Franck Kessie, Cristian Romero, and Robin Gosens for Atalanta for just under €20 million and flipped them for a combined €111 million.

After some early struggles under head coach Vincenzo Italiano, who replaced Thiago Motta in the dugout, Bologna began to see the results of his high-pressing demands, moving as high as fourth place while reaching the Coppa Italia final.

All the while, Milan sunk as low as ninth after firing their sporting director and bailing on marquee summer signing Alvaro Morata shortly after. The Rossoneri traded head coach Paulo Fonseca for Sergio Conceicao in January after passing on the opportunity to hire Antonio Conte. The directors, who had never held such prominent decision-making roles before in their careers, opted for the defensive-minded Conceicao after reneging on their promise for attacking football under Fonseca. The players were just as confused as the fans, and Morata, feeling betrayed by the change in approach, wanted out.

Milan seemed to be winging it as the season went along.