Travels Around Roma Part VI: A.S. Roma vs. Bari

For my Culture and Identity class I had to do an ethnography on some aspect of Italian culture. So naturally I chose calcio, or more commonly known as soccer in America. Surprisingly nobody says futbol. Its always calcio, with the second c pronounced as as "ch" sound of course. And to "study" the sports culture naturally I went to an A.S. Roma game. The game was A.S Roma vs. Bari, a team from the eastern cost of Italy south of Rome. The game took place on Nov 22, 2009. I didn't know how popular the games are and how heave the traffic is going to the game, so I was late. In fact, I had to take a the metro to Barberini and then follow the crowd into a PACKED bus. It was like cattle. I couldn't move and people were all around me. When the bus turned I didn't have to hold on to anything because the people stopped my momentum. Of course the captian of A.S. Roma is number 1o, Francesco Totti. Or more commonly known as Totti. He also plays for the (currently) defending World Cup champion Italian National team. He plays forward, which basically means he's the one that shoots the most and scores the goals. The glamorous position of the team. He's basically an A list celebrity in Roma, and has his own (shoddy) clothing line. He's also the subject of jokes about dumb Romans because he speaks Roman dialect instead of standard Italian, which would be like a Michael Jordan speaking with a hillbilly accent on national TV all the time. Totti himself even published a book of Totti jokes. Also, Totti got banned 3 games while playing Denmark for spitting on a player. You can play the online Totti spitting game here. Just click gioca, or play, to start. Apparently when he hits 11 Danish players he leaves with his famous girlfriend Ilary Blasi.

Well anyways I came a little late to the game and I remember getting there in the 14th minute. I had walked into one the greatest (regular season games) that Totti would ever play... Totti scored a hat trick (3 goals) in the first half alone. His first goal was a penalty kick in the 5th minute, and I walked in just as the crows was celebrating his second goal. He has his own chant and Romans raise both hands in the air in their Totti celebrations. This was my view from the seats next to Curva Nord, which is the visitors section. But security took a lot of steps to seperate the Roma supporters from the Bari supports. Curva Sud on the south side of the stadium has all the hard-core Roma fans, but that was sold out. I was about to buy the cheap Curva Nord tickets but a local behind me advised me not to out of personal safety. It's a form of suicide to go support Roma in the Curva Nord section. You can see a Roma fan with a Totti jersey in the middle of the picture in the Curva Sud section.

The above picture was from the standing section more or less ( I don't really remember). Once I got into my seat I had to sit behind a plexiglass "wall", and this the picture I took. I really couldn't see all the fingerprints when I took the picture though.

And another picture of an A.S. Roma goal kick. The A.S. Roma wears black and A.S. Roma wears red while Bari wears white. If you right click on the picture and choose open link in new window. you will get an enlarged picture and the leftmost Roma player right on the mid-field line is number 10 Totti himself. I was trying hard to get a good Totti shot but I never really got one because he was on the opposite side of the field playing forward. Ehh but this is good enough.

And here again is another field view. There is nothing really original here, but enjoy anyways.

A.S. Roma and their inter-city rivals both play in Stadio Olimpico. Since Italy is divided into different regions, regional identity is a strong mainstay of Italian culture because before Italy was united in 1870 each region was its own kingdom. Each region has its own dialect, food (Milan eats pizza, not rice for example) and its own culture. However since Roma is the capitol of Italy and founding city of the Roman Empire, it thinks highly of itself, even if it is in the Lazio region. Basically the Roma-Lazio rivalry runs through the entire city. Taxi drivers pledge will let you know you are in the wrong cab if you say you like Lazio. You should apologize immediately and say your a tourist.

Anyways, Stadio Olimpico was built my Mussolini as a symbol of nationalistic pride, like everything else he built. It has shape-like fascist style with an attempt to reconnect with ancient Rome, which he tried really hard to do. Hence the arches, square shape, and the olympic rings.

Around the actual stadium is a mini-stadium that is lined with marble statues to show off. Here it is. The statues look nice but knowing they are from Mussolini kind of spoils it. There are also in the stadium big M shapes and mosaics of Italy conquering Ethiopia from the 1930's. Nobody has really taken them down yet, even though everybody hates Mussolini. Strange.

Here is another picture of the statues with Stadio Olimpico of course in the background.

And one more picture looking from the North side of the field. You can see how many statues there are on the left side of the field a little bit. When in Rome. Quando a Roma...

Now back to the stadium. Basically the way it works is that I load up all the pictures first and then caption them. I really didn't rearrange these pictures in chronological order, as you might be able to tell from the color of the sky. Also all the picture outside of the stadium were taken as I was leaving the game. But this picture is of the young A.S. Roma fan with the beanie and flag.

Here is a picture of the scoreboard. Totti scored three goals in the first half and Bari added one meaningless goal in the second half. You can see its the 78th minute and the score is Roma 3 Bari 1. And I guess its just some ads also. My Italian isn't good enough to translate.

Here is a view of Curva Sud with the Bari fans waving their flags even though their team is getting destroyed. Security was present to prevent any fights, but some flair fires went off in the crowd. That and that section had a chant where they all lifted their Bari scarves in the air at the same time (everyone has team scarves, especially in the winter). That and of course taunting directed towards my section. They also have organized chants and songs like Roma.

Here is a view of the Curva Sud section with the A.S. Roma fans with their flags. That is also where they do the Roma, Roma, Roma chant. However I did hear that at the end of the game and again when I went to another game (keep a look out for that post also).

And here is the max zoom view of the Curva Sud section. It was pretty crazy there, especially when Totti scored his goals. Everybody immediately got up and celebrated, hugged each other, the whole shabang. And then the Totti chant came on the loudspeakers and everybody did that. Needless to say I was a little bit lost and confused.

Another view of the Curva Nord Bari supporters. They were pretty into the game even though last time I checked in their division Bari was ranked 11th out of 20 (and Roma 10th). Imagine how crazy it would have been if the teams were good or at the Roma-Lazio game (which only Roman citizens are allowed to attend and from what I was personally told is crazy and violent).

And one final view of the crowd. I can never get enough. Roma is definitely one of my favorite club soccer teams. Lazio sucks. As they say, Forza Roma!!!!!!! (Go Roma!!!!)