Ground: Stadio Olimpico (72,698 capacity) Location: Rome, Italy Ticket price: €26 euro for my seat. It is highly recommended that you buy your ticket online before the game.
There’s a website called secretshirt.co. You may have heard of it. Basically, you pay £35 and in return you receive a ‘mystery’ shirt. The selection available is pretty impressive too; I’ve seen Fenerbahce, Toluca and River Plate shirts being handed out generously by this company. The reason why I mention this is because at Christmas, I decided that I’d buy my own secret shirt and whichever team’s shirt I got, I would go and watch that team play at home in person. As I’m sure you will have guessed, given the title of this blog post, I received the shirt of Le Aquile or The Eagles, the blue side of Rome. Yes, the sky-coloured shirt of S.S. Lazio (the S.S. standing for Societa Sportiva) glistened when I opened the box. A very interesting choice from the kit-packers for sure.
I was well aware of the colourful history of Lazio as their fans are generally referred to as ‘fascist’ and ‘right-wing’. Not that I’m trying to conflate the two at all, but both the complete antithesis of my own political leanings. Nethertheless I’m an open-minded person and sitting in the family side, I’m sure they’ll be welcoming towards a foreigner that can only speak broken Italian. I looked at Lazio’s home games and two stood out for me: at home to Fiorentina and at home to Atalanta. As appealing as watching La Viola are, I couldn’t resist to watch Gasperini’s Atalanta side; particularly as this is also a derby game, given Atalanta’s left-wing leanings.
I won’t bore you too much about Rome itself, but Italy’s capital is one of the best cities I’ve been to. I was based at the Hotel Croce di Malta which is a great budget option based at the heart of the city centre. The rail station is roughly 30 minutes away and the Olimpico is just under an hour’s walk. The Spanish Steps, Colosseum, Trevi Fountain and other attractions are all within walking distance and the neighbourhood area Trastevere isn’t too far either (and supposedly the best place to grab a pizza in the capital). The one thing to be wary of are scammers. There’s a comprehensive list of scams on the Wikivoyage page for Rome but the most common one I experienced are from merchants trying to sell you bracelets and other knick-knacks. The best practice is to ignore them; after all they’re not going to harm you in any way as most arrived in the country illegally and would face deportation if detained. As they say in Rome, “Don’t be afraid to be a dick.”
As to the game itself, I was apprehensive about going. I had pre-paid for my ticket before my trip but as it was my first foreign football trip I wasn’t sure if I was feeling up to it. Ultimately, because I had paid, I figured I’d make the 55 minute walk to the Olimpico because I’d likely regret it if I didn’t. I saw some fans jump on the tram which travels on the Mancini line, going directly to the stadium. I considered joining them for a brief second but I trust my own feet (and Google maps) more than I do public transport in unfamiliar territory. The path itself was mostly straight and then across a large bridge where the Polizia were making their presence felt. The one thing to note about Italy is that you should carry your passport around at all times as most places will check for ID. The Olimpico is one such place and, after scanning my ticket and being searched for knives, was asked to provide my ID to verify who I was. After around 15 minutes of getting through the numerous turnstiles (seriously the security was lock tight there) I made my way into the stadium, greeted by a festival atmosphere.
Around 20 minutes before kickoff, the TV in the stadium showed a small clip of the Lazio players meeting the Pope and His Holiness offering his blessing to each player one by one and, given Lazio’s form coming into the game, perhaps this was needed, The best bit though was the lineup. Unlike in England where you get the announcer monotonously reading each name and sponsor, the Italian guy doing it sounded energetic and enthusiastic and so did the crowd. The announcer would bellow out the forename and the crowd would boom out the surname:
“IVAN”
“PRO-VE-DAHL”
“ELSEID”
“HEE-SAI-EEE”
“CHIRO”
“EE-MO-BEE-LAY”
“TRAINER MAURIZIO”
“SA-RRI”
The crowd then raised their scarves and belted out a hair-raising rendition of the club’s anthem, continuing to sing an extra verse acapella once the music stopped.
Two strong teams going at each other, the home side backed by a wall of blue, the gentleman a few seats to my left was going apoplectic at the 200 or so Atalanta fans sitting a birds eye view away from us, sticking two middle fingers and raging a string of (I presume) obscenities in their direction. A few kids below me were paying homage to Julius Caesar with a straight salute (or at least that’s what I was told).
The first half was all Atalanta. Lazio seemed afraid to trigger their press, seemingly afraid of the space they may leave behind due to the pace of Hojlund and the trickery of Lookman. Atalanta started the game strongly, peppering the goal of Provedal who made a couple of smart saves to keep the game scoreless. However, a goal was always going to come. Both lineups contained players Premier League fans may be aware of; Felipe Anderson, Marten De Roon and Davide Zappacosta were just some of the names donning the jersey of either side, and it was the latter who opened the scoring, cutting inside and curling the ball past a despairing Provedal into the top corner. The crowd fell silent.
If Lazio were to break level, then Zaccagni looked like he would be the man to get his team level as all the home side’s attacks were going through him. The Italian showed silky dribbling and cut inside on numerous occasions, the Adam’s Apple of the Atalanta defense wobbling every time the ball touched his boot. Lazio’s best chance of the first half was a stinging drive from just outside of the area, which Musso acrobatically tipped over.
As the second half was about to kick off I was hoping we’d at least get a Lazio goal, just to hear the home crowd roar, however it was Atalanta coming out looking the stronger team once again. The trickery of Lookman was completely bamboozling the defense and every time Lazio attempted a counter attack, loose balls, in particular from Felipe Anderson and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic were thwarting their own attempts. I watched one pass in particular from Milinkovic-Savic where he tried to pick his wing back out, however the pass was hit short and lacked pace. Lookman, alert as ever, intercepted the pass and burst down the flank with the wing-back out of position. He looked across and saw Hojlund scampering around in the penalty area. The cross was played in, Provedal dived, but the ball slid past the Lazio goalkeeper, leaving an empty net for the Dane to tap home.
Felipe Anderson had been taken off prior to this substitution and the aforementioned man was jumping up and down like a rabbit with a tack in its foot. “Che Cazzo Fai Sarri!” he screamed ad-infinitum despite the Brazilian’s performance throughout the game. After the goal went in, he looked resigned and must have said to his mate, “Fuck this, I’ve had enough.” I didn’t see him again. The only thing I could see were the fumes steaming from the murder of chain smokers around me.
Lazio 0-2 Atalanta 11/02/23
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