Juventus v Roma & Inter Milan v AC Milan

Juventus 1-2 Roma (23:01:10)

Inter Milan 2-0 AC Milan (24:01:10)

For once, I'm going to shut up. No really I am. Just allow me to explain that this report was written by Nick Waterhouse, in a first of possibly many, of your European Football Weekend experiences. Over you to Nicky Boy:

All aboard the Serie A Espresso

A few months ago it was decided over a couple of post work drinks to make the pilgrimage to the San Siro in Milan. A couple of scoops later and we were off to the Milan derby. In true EFW tradition, there was no point in going all that way without turning 1 game into 2, so all we needed was the fixtures. Ahhh the fixtures….one of my favourite expressions is "football with no bother", unfortunately, rather like their Spanish counterparts, this is not an expression that is muttered too often at the Italian FA’s headquarters. The kick off times for this round of fixtures were not announced until a month before the games, making the booking of flights a lottery. Additionally, tickets are not on sale until a week before each game. However the TV chiefs were kind to us and selected Juve v Roma for the Saturday night and the Milan derby on the Sunday.

All aboard the 6.06 train to Gatwick on Saturday morning then, luckily no one took this time literally so we did not have to listen to 2 hours of half-wits pleading for goal line technology or whether Gerrard and Lampard can play together ZZZzzzzz....

One issue guaranteed to give me sleepless nights is not having match tickets in hand. Due to the magnitude of the fixtures we were attending, we were forced to go down the dreaded ‘Seatwave.com’ route, i.e. tickets 4x their face value. They were to be delivered to our hotel but upon our arrival in Turin.….no tickets agggghhhh. Panic not though, we re-read the small print and they would be there 3 hours before kick off. So we took ourselves off into Turin to see what it could offer us… I say, when in Rome (or Turin) do as the locals do, so to put us in the mood we popped a couple of espressos down the hatch and moved into the pizza market.

I’m delighted to report that EFW pizzas are now widely available in Turin!

So, 3 hours prior to kick off, we collected our tickets and made a beeline for the local bar ‘Costa Rica’. A rather fine tradition in Turin is ‘Apertivi’ time – where all bars give a load of free tucker to all patrons at around 6pm, it really is fill your boots time – hearty fare for the price of a few pints, what’s not to like? (Well €6 a pint since you asked.) In this bar we also picked up a copy of the famous ‘La Gazzetta dello Sport’ and were delighted to see that EFW had made the front page!

Anything to sell a paper those Italians.

Free food = nice. €6 a pint = wallet ouch.

Sadly, Juventus are currently strutting their stuff at the Stadio Olimpico while the Stadio delle Alpi is refurnished. It’s a fairly soulless place, certainly not helped by one end being closed as a punishment for Juve fans misbehaving at a previous fixture. The police conduct a thorough search of punters as they enter the ground. I’m not too sure what they are looking for, it certainly wasn’t flares, fireworks or spliffs as they were all being lit by the truckload in the stadium.

The Soulless Stadio Olimpico. James Brown would have hated it.

Roma fans spark into life.

Kev, Nick and Binso pay the Old Lady a visit.

The game itself was a slow burner that sparked into life in the second half where all boxes were ticked: Buffon sent off, penalty for Roma and the visitors finally ran out 2-1 winners courtesy of a last minute diving header from Jan Arne Riise. I was pleased it was him because he was resplendent in short sleeved shirt and shorts whereas all the others were mincing about in tights and gloves.

After a night on the beers we were up and at them the following morning to catch the train to Milan. Naturally enough it was not straight forward to purchase a ticket but all said and done €9 for the 90 minute journey was not to be sniffed at. Kev had prepared a marvellous football quiz for the journey; I won’t say who won as I’m far too modest ;-)

A few more beers and apertivi to put us in the mood and it was time for the big one. Approaching the San Siro really was special; this place really is a football cathedral. We were sat up in the dreaded 3rd tier where the view would be woeful enough without the netting that they have put up to obscure your view even more.

Binso needed his binsos from the third tier!

In the blue and black corner Inter....

....and in the red and black corner AC.

Can I have a go on those binsos Binso!?

Fortunately we were able to move round to the half way line and took up a sneaky position at the back of the stand – perfect view – tick! I can only describe the pre match atmosphere as sensational. I attended the Old Firm derby earlier this season and this knocked it for 6. The fan displays, the singing and all the flares made it quite spectacular.

The game was played at 100mph, Inter ran out 2-0 winners and quite frankly Milan’s finishing was appalling. Inter were down to 9 men by the end of the game yet Milan still could not score, Ronaldinho even missing a penalty.

We returned to the centre of Milan for a few more beers to round off a pretty special weekend of EFW action. Bring on the next one.

Arrivederci Milano!

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