It has been 12 long years since the last time Fortitudo Bologna played in a European competition and the storied club certainly aims to make a big re-entrance.

First, Fortitudo chose Italian national team head coach Romeo Sacchetti to take the reins of the team, and then the Bologna club went out and rebuilt their roster, assembling the top-3 scorers of last season's Italian Serie A in the process.

On December 6 though, the club announced that they had decided to part ways with the veteran tactician and the next day they appointed Luca Dalmonte as their new head coach. The 57-year-old Italian tactician had worked as an assistant coach at Fortitudo during a five-year span in the 1990s.

The 'Effe' already had on the team Italian international Pietro Aradori, the league's third-leading scorer, and went on to add the Serie A top scoring duo, in Ethan Happ  and Adrian Banks.

Happ, a 24-year-old big man who started the 2019-20 at Greek powerhouse Olympiacos, was recruited by Sacchhetti at Cremona midway through the season and averaged 18 points, 9 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game in the Serie A.

Banks had yet another impressive campaign with Happy Casa Brindisi averaging a league-best 21.2 points  as well as 4.5 assists per game in the Serie A. Meawhiile the veteran guard averaged 14.8 points and 4 assists per game in the Basketball Champions League Regular Season with the  Italian team.

Fortitudo also signed a duo of American forwards  in Tre’Shaun Fletcher and Todd Withers, who averaged 10.7 points in the G League with the Grand Rapids Drive in the 2019-20 season.

Fletcher played in the first two games of the BCL season with the Bologna club but they went their separate ways on December 29.

The Bologna club strengthened their Italian core by adding big man Leonardo Totè  who made his national team debut under Sacchetti and averaged 9.5 points and 6 rebounds per game in the Serie A with Pesaro last season.

Fortitudo also added two interesting players from the Italian second division in Gherardo Sabatini, who led the Serie A2 in assists last season as he averaged 6.3 assists to go with his 10.7 points per game, and in 19-year-old combo guard Mattia Palumbo.

On October 30th, Fortitudo penned veteran big man Marco Cusin. The 35-year-old former Italian international spent the 2019-20 season at Juve Caserta, averaging 8 points and 5.1 rebounds per game in the Serie A2 league.

A few days later the Bologna blues also reinforced the wing by adding Wesley Saunders, who started the 2020-21 season at Monaco, in the French league, but had worked with coach Sacchetti at Cremona. In his last season in the Serie A with Cremona, the 27-year-old American averaged 14 points, 5.9 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game.

The latest addition to the roster was Dario Hunt, who started the season at Virtus Roma but became a free agent when the club went into administration in December. The 31-year-old power forward averaged 11.6 points and 5.4 rebounds per game in the first seven games of the Italian Serie A this season.