Roma v Lazio

So, I know some of you probably couldn't care less about ancient Roman ruins...and some of you would probably rather have your toenails pulled then spend a half of a day wandering through a museum of Renaissance art... so for those of you: here's something that you would LOVE to experience.  NOW, you'll be thinking to yourself, NOW they've arrived.  (warning: those ruin and art lovers might not care too much...)

We'd been looking for a soccer game to go to -- what a great way to experience the local culture, right?  By the way, they call it calcio in Rome (it's futbol everywhere else).  So, when we arrived in Rome, we tried to check the schedule to see if we'd be able to find one.  We were in luck (and believe me, it took plenty of luck to try to decipher the schedule) and found out that on Wednesday night there was a Roma v Lazio soccer game.

There are some sports rivalries that are so traditionally ferocious, so ingrained in the culture, so "fanatical", that support for rival teams would make a budding relationship untenable - no marriage could bridge that divide and survive.  Think Yankees - Mets on steroids.  The Roma - Lazio rivalry is one of those.  Roma is Rome's city team, while Lazio is the regional team.  Both play their home games in the Olympic Stadium in Rome, and a couple of times each year, they play each other.  As Rick Steves says in his book - "When Romans are introduced, they ask each other, "Laziale o romanista?"   It's even more important than Yankees - Mets maybe because there is no football, basketball and hockey to temper the emotions and they only play each other once or twice a year.

We debated whether to go -- would the rivalry get out of hand (I'm sure you've heard soccer hooligan stories)?  Would there be tickets available (and reasonably priced)?  Could the kids handle it (aside from the perils of the crowd, the game didn't start until 8:45PM)?  Would the weather be ok (nothing worse than watching a sporting event in the cold and rain)?  After asking around, we discovered that we could buy the tickets at the bar around the corner from our apartment.  As a security measure you need to show your passport or some sort of identification to buy the tickets... and not just the adults, the kids too (never had to do that for an Eagles game).  We paid 15 Euros for each ticket in the end zone of the Lazio section -- it turns out there were plenty of seats available, especially the expensive ones.

The security was insane.  They checked our ID (yes, we had to bring the passports to the game also) and did body/bag searches twice on the walk toward the stadium.  At the stadium, the ticket machine flashed up your name as you entered so the guards could check, once again, to make sure you were who you were supposed to be.

Here's the guy who checked each of our passports at the entrance to the stadium.  Behind him was another line of policemen doing body and bag searches.

The crowds were immense and as we got closer to the stadium, the noise was incredible.  There were cheers and chants and screaming...it was nuts.

In the end, Roma won the game 2 to 1.   We enjoyed the loud rowdiness of the crowd - there were some other kids right near us too that had flags, and sang all the cheers and jeers (There must have been 10 or 15 different songs/cheers they screamed during the game.  I'm sure there were plenty of bad words in the chants but we didn't understand any of them so it didn't matter.)  We really didn't ever feel that we were in danger in any way from fans, although a guy did get thrown out not far from us for causing trouble.

Before and after the game, the show of force by the local Rome police department was incredible. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of policemen in combat gear with riot shields lining the exits and the roads leading out of the area.  Fans of one team were strategically kept separate from fans from the other team with exits and paths blocked by rows of officers forcing people to walk directly out of the stadium and WAY around outside to ensure the crowds were disbursed before any trouble could occur.  We ended up having to walk at least a mile out of our way because our seats were on the north side of the stadium but we needed to get to the south to get a bus back into town.  We almost missed the last buses of the night at midnight because traffic was so disrupted and the detour around so long....but it was worth it.

Teams line up before the game

At four sections in the crowd, there were cops lined up and down the stadium to make sure fans from one team didn't "accidentally" mix with fans from the other side.  As you can see, the seats near these guys are completely empty...those are the expensive seats.  The end zones were packed but most of the rest of the stadium wasn't.

Final score - Roma 2, Lazio 1