Como

Ground: Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia

Visits: 1

Date: 4th April 2012

Match: Como - Avellino 1-0 (Lega Pro 1)

Attendance: 1 281

Every Easter since 2006 I have been going to England for football. This year I was free from work the week before Easter meaning I could "only" go to three new grounds in England. Instead I looked elsewhere and in the end I decided for Italy. Having been to only four grounds in Italy I had plenty of choices. With a full round of matches in Lega Pro 1 (level 3) on Wednesday evening I had a lot of matches to choose from for my first match on this trip. In the end I decided for Como vs Avellino at Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia. Como is nicely situated by the Alps and the city is only 5 km from the Swiss border. Lago di Como is a lake named by the city at its most southern point. Como is a popular tourist destination and even if there were more interesting matches I knew Como would be a nice place to visit. My trip started on Tuesday afternoon though when I set off for Copenhagen Airport and my flight to Milan. I stayed the night in Milan and on Wednesday morning I did the ground tour at San Siro. This impressive stadium is always worth a visit and it was interesting to see the stadium on a non-matchday. Later in the afternoon I left Milan and after an hour my train reached Como. Once I left the train station I could feel the fresh air of the Italian Alps. My hotel was only a 10-minute walk a I found it without any problems.

Como has played several season in Serie A and between 1984 and 1989 Swedish striker Dan Corneliusson played here. In total he made 112 appearances for Como, scoring 18 goals. Nowdays Como fight for survival in Lega Pro 1 and the match against Avellino was very important for the home team. Como play at Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia which is yet another old, ran-down Italian stadium. There is an all-seated covered main stand with approximately 2000 seats. The rest of the ground is open but for this (and most other matches) only the home end behind the goal to our left was used, apart for the main stand of course. There was heavy rain coming down in Como which meant I had to buy a ticket for the covered main stand, costing 30 Euros. The rain eased as we approached kick-off but kick-off was delayed by 7 minutes because all the rain early in the evening had diluted the chalk and the groundkeeper had to do his chalking one more time (see picture below). Of course his chalking device was broken during this and everything suddenly looked so Italian, organised chaos. Anyway, the match eventually started and after 15 minutes Como took the lead from the penalty spot. After having a player sent off late in the first half Como spent the rest of the match defending. Since Avellino couldn't break down the Como defence it endfed 1-0 to Como. Avellino had around 100 fans in Como and they gave their team a very good vocal support during most of the match. With Como having plenty of vocal fans in Curva Como the atmosphere at this match was actually quite good. I went to this match with my German friend Jonas (www.groundchecker.de) and we agreed the atmosphere was much better than the actual match. Tomorrow we will go to Varese vs Pescara and hopefully that match will be better than the one we attended this rainy evening in Como.

como, vy