We're Big Roma Fans (Rome, Italy - September 20)

We knew at some point we had to go to a futbol match, but we hadn't really been anywhere long enough to figure it out. Once we got to Rome we looked and saw each of their two teams had a game while we were there. Because it made more sense to go on Sunday night instead of theWednesday night before we were leaving, we instantly became AS Roma fans. We went to the team store and bought two tickets for the cheap seats. We took the (slightly delayed) bus to the stadium with excited fans.

Ali was also very excited. She was so excited to film us entering the stadium, that she had a little trouble actually getting in.



If you notice, she grabbed and pulled the wrong bar. This led to confusion as we had to explain to the attendants what happened and have them help lead her through the VIP entrance. Interestingly, in order to attend a soccer game, you need to provide an ID for each ticket and your name is put on the ticket. So they were able to check her ID and match it with her ticket. I'd have to imagine this severely inhibits scalping sometimes however.

As huge Roma fans, we were thrilled when they jumped out to an early 1-0 lead thanks to a terrible call leading to a penalty kick:



Ali was also excited



We were in the Curva Nord. When we bought the tickets, I noticed that the Curva Sud on the opposite end was entirely sold out and reserved for "Roma Fans." So I was a bit surprised when the entire section was empty at kickoff. I expected more from European soccer fans.

Then after Roma scored their second goal about 20 minutes into the game, smoke bombs started going off in the empty section.



After a few minutes of explosions, all the funs rushed down to take their seats. In the picture below you can see the now full section, along with some shirtless fans.



Lamberto, the owner of our apartment, later told us that the "Roma Fans" were on strike and were protesting by missing the first twenty minutes of the game. We had run into a train strike, but fans on strike is a new one to me, but I like the idea of it, although I'm not sure how effective only missing twenty minutes is.

Midway through the first half, Roma scored again to take a 3-0 lead and lock up the victory with about 60 minutes left to play. Being Southern California sports fans, we decided to leave part way through the second half in order to beat the crowd to the buses.





All in all, it was a great experience. I think the extremely large stadium dulled the craziness because about half of the stadium was empty. Some things were comfortable for us (hot dogs, expensive beer, bad bathrooms). Other things were new to us (all the fans drinking coffee instead of beer). We also learned some new Italian words that were involved in chants I'm not sure I'm allowed to reprint here. They weren't big on the subtlety and were a bit more direct than chants at American football games. Although I do think I heard a safety school chant.