Riccardo Orsolini celebrated his goal against Lazio by walking up to the camera, looking directly at it and knocking on the glass, waving, and then indicating himself. 

The gesture seemed to say: “Have you forgotten about me?”

In an era when celebrations are often as elaborate as they are obscure, there was something refreshingly deliberate about this.

Orsolini’s message was clear and so was the identity of the recipient, which everyone interpreted to be Luciano Spalletti. 

The Italy manager left the Bologna winger out of his squad for the Nations League quarter-final against Germany.

“I was simply waving to a friend back home,” chuckled Orsolini when asked to explain his celebration.

“The Nazionale? My focus is solely on wearing the Bologna shirt right now.”

And the 28-year-old is doing a fine job of that.

That goal in the 5-0 trouncing of Lazio just before international break was Orsolini’s 10th of the campaign, equalling his tally from last season in just 21 appearances. He also has four assists to his name, already two more than he registered last term.

Only Mateo Retegui and Moise Kean have more goal contributions among Italian players than Orsolini, who has the highest xG at Bologna.

What makes his return even more remarkable is that nobody saw this coming.

The former Italy Under-21 international seemed to have lost all his confidence after Vincenzo Italiano replaced Thiago Motta in the dugout at the Renato Dall’Ara in the summer.

But after a slow start returned just one goal from his first six league outings this season, Orsolini burst into life with five and two assists in the next six fixtures.

The goals were as crucial as they were regular. He scored the opener in a 2-0 win away at Cagliari at the end of October that sparked a three-game winning run.

He netted the winner the following week against Lecce, before scoring one and setting up another in the 3-2 win over Roma at the Stadio Olimpico seven days later.

This was the version of Orsolini that inspired Bologna to fifth place last season and the one Italiano was confident he would get.

“We spoke at length,” the Bologna manager said. “The last thing I want is to put any mental pressure on him. I told him I still want 11 goals from him, but also that he has the potential to do much better and that he must not lose his focus. 

“He’s respected by everyone here.”

Orsolini’s goal glut came at the perfect time for Bologna who, like him, had endured a difficult start to the post-Motta era.

They qualified for the Champions League for the first time in their history but a slow start to life under Italiano looked to have punctured the balloon of optimism.

Bologna won just twice in their opening 10 Serie A fixtures this term, but Italiano insisted he needed time to get the players to buy into his system. He has been proved right.

The win over Lazio was Bologna’s seventh in their last 10 fixtures, a run which has put them in the box seat in the race for the final Champions League spot.

The Rossoblu are fourth with 53 points after 29 rounds, one point clear of Juventus and two ahead of Lazio. 

Italiano has also steered his team to the semi-finals of the Coppa Italia, the first time the Felsinei have reached this stage of the competition since the 1998-99 season.

Bologna, however, face a brutal run-in over the final two months of the season.

A visit to 19th-placed Venezia this weekend bodes well for their chances of continuing their winning run, even though the Lagunari are desperate for points to avoid relegation and held Napoli to a draw last time out.

April, however, is not for the faint-hearted. 

In between the two legs of the Coppa Italia semi-final against Empoli, Bologna face the three Scudetto contenders in consecutive weeks as they host Napoli and Inter Milan with a trip to Bergamo to face Atalanta sandwiched in between.

And three of their fixtures after the second leg of the Coppa Italia are away, with trips to Udine, San Siro to face AC Milan, and Florence coming either side of a visit from Juventus.

Securing a Champions League spot for a second consecutive season would be a fantastic achievement for Bologna, whose only taste of European football’s most prestigious competition before this campaign came in 1964.

Whatever happens over the next two months, underestimate Italiano and Orsolini at your peril. It’s exactly how Bologna like it.