Coppa Italia final 18/19

On this episode of UB on tour we went to another big match in Europe: the Coppa Italia final between Atalanta BC and Lazio!

It was a 1 day trip so our day begun early as we arrived in Rome at 11 in the morning. From the moment that we arrived until the moment we came back in the appartment it has rained, so the first and only thing we could do during the day was close ourselves in a bar/pub and have some drinks. (which was perfect for everyone)
After some beers and food at a bar 2/3 kilometers from the stadium we made our way to the Olimpico.

After a 15 minute walk we saw the first police buses and vans, we were on the right way. For this final we had tickets for the Atalanta sector so we joined the tifosi in a bar near to the stadium.
In this area there was a pretty calm atmosphere without any riots or troubles. Just drinking some beers ,singing and laughing.. a good way to prepare for the match. Instead a part of the Lazio tifosi had some troubles with police ahead of the match.. resulted in two burned police cars, and few other complaints.

For Atalanta it was the 4th coppa final in the history of the club, the first time in 23 years. On their journey to Rome they”ve faced Juventus at home in the quarter final, who they beated with 3-0! After that they won the battle over 2 matches against Fiorentina with 5-4 in the Semi Finals.
More than 22.000 tifosi made the 600km long journey to Rome. Huge numbers if you consider that Bergamo, the city of Atalanta only has 120.000 inhabitants. And also the cheapest tickets were arround 50 euro up to 150 euro for the main stand.

Instead of Atalanta, Lazio tifosi are more used to win titles. In their rich history they’ve won the Coppa Italia 6 times. The last time was in 2014 were they beated their rivals of AS Roma 1-0. Lazio beated the 2 teams from Milan in their journey to the final. Both AC Milan and Internazionale could not stand against Lazio and so they moved into the final.
As expected Lazio sold out all their 35.000 tickets and probably there were around 40/45.000 ” Laziali ” present in the Olimpico this night.

After we drank the necessary beers we went to the stadium, after 3 security checks we finally came up the curva. Atalanta’s curva was all ready almost filled up 1/1.5 hour before the match and the atmosphere was buzzing already. You could feel that this was a special day for all atalanta tifosi!

The Curva Nord of Atalanta had prepared arround 15.000 flags for this night which they handed out at the entrance of the curva. This resulted in a nice choreo ahead of the match.
The Lazio tifosi did not prepared any choreo this time, but the curva was filled with huge flags and banners which also made a nice view.

Overall both tifosi made up a great athmosphere throughout the match. On the field it was quite a tough match which could have ended in all directions. For a long time it looked like the match would end in 0-0. But in the 82th minute there was Sergej Milinkovic-Savic who scored the 1-0 and some minutes after the first goal it was the young Joaquin Correa to score the 2-0 and decided the match.

So unfortunately it wasn’t the evening the Atalanta tifosi had hoped for. Still no price since 1963.
But instead of sadness, pride took the upper hand in the tifosi from Bergamo. Proud on the team who fought until the last minute. And as Atalanta is still in the race for the Champions League spot their is still something to “win” this season!