By Bill HeaneyHundreds of England supporters – and quite a few Italians with Scottish accents – will descend on Rome this afternoon, ignoring warnings that they should stay at home, Roman newspaper Il Messaggero reports.
Some wsith rootsa deeply in plac es like Barga are already in the capital but are drawing as little attention to themselves as possible.
“The English fans move around in small groups, three or four max. No distinctive features. No Saint George’s flag. No national shirt. They are nearly impossible to spot,” claims the newspaper.
The Scottish Italians won’t be hiding their support though – Forza Azzuri for the tournament.
One of them, however, is unlikely to be the young lad in the picture above which we took at Glasgow Airport when the Ukraine manager Shevcenko was a Rangers’ star and the boy in question was, like us, heading off on his holidays.
We don’t know the boy’s name and he has never seen this picture, but if he contacts us at heaneymedia@btinternet. com we will send him a copy of it. That’s a promise.
There will not be many Scots accents around the Piazza Nova today but if there are they will be giving voice to support for Ukraine against the Auld Enemy.
Like them, we believe Ukraine have a realistic chance of winning. We tipped Italy to beat Belgium last evening and they did by 2-1. We hope to see them in the final of Euro2020/21.
According to Il Messaggero, as many as 2,000 UK residents could travel to Rome to try to watch the game at the stadium and around the city.
Asked whether the estimate is realistic, an official from Italy’s Polizia di Stato said that it is still too soon to say.
“They could come on trains, by plane or by car. We’ll have a better idea of how many have ignored the quarantine nearer to the game when police checks around the stadium are intensified,” he said.
England fans – and some Sc ots too – can be mainly found in the city’s English pubs. The newspaper adds: “It’s enough to ask who will score the first goal to draw cries of ‘C’mon England!’. All of them swear they arrived one week ago, which they repeat like a broken record. It is difficult to believe them.”
But Italian police have said they will not be checking plane tickets to determine when fans entered the country, the paper claims.
According to Italian regulations, UK residents, together with anybody who has set foot in the UK 14 days before travelling to Italy, must quarantine on arrival for five days.
Police are relying on “good faith” rather than checking when fans arrived from the UK, the paper reports. However, police will be asking UK-residents for two Covid tests taken five days apart in Italy as proof of quarantine as previously reported by i, Il Messaggero reports.
In comments to the Adnkronos news agency, Mario Della Cioppa, head of Italy’s Polizia di Stato, said police will be searching for UK-residents around the stadium (where there are five security checkpoints), the streets nearby and the large fan zone at the Fori Imperiali.
Police will also home in on Fontana di Trevi, piazza di Spagna, Campo de’ Fiori, piazzas in Trastevere, pubs popular with Brits in via Vittorio Emanuele, via Cavour and Ponte Milvio, and hotels in the Pinciano and the Villa Doria Pamphili quarters.