Italian crowds could be misleading

[Frank Cunha]

Many Americans believe soccer in Europe is constantly played to full stadiums, but a look at attendance in Italy last weekend is more typical of the truth.

Except for the high-profile matchups -- 70,000 at Lazio vs. Inter Milan and 68,000 at AC Milan vs. Roma -- the biggest crowd was the 25,000 at Brescia to see Juventus on the road. The other five games averaged a mere 12,000.

Big games this weekend: Ajax vs. PSV Eindhoven, Juventus vs. Lazio, Bayern Munich vs. Schalke.

[Zizou]

Juventus have the biggest number of supporters in Italy, but not in their home city where they hardly fill 15,000 per game.

[Paisley]

Isn't that because of the ground being on the outskirts of Turin and nobody will travel to it?

[Zizou]

Well Torino always fill their ground, so being on the outskirts of the city is not the reason. They succeed in filling all their away games, cos most of their fans are in Milan and south of Italy (they have 10 million fans in italy, their closest ones are Inter with 4.5 million fans). Now they're gonn try and build a better ground to try and lur more fans, cos the athletic field ruins a football ground. They`re gonna make it english style with the fans close to the pitch.

[jimlad1981]

did u see the people in the san siro last night?
u couldnt find a seat?
all ot 10000 there :D

fickle fans

[Foley87]

i was watching arsenal too

there aint many seast to spare there

yeh , bringin the fans closer to the pitch is so much better

thats y im pleased theyve taken the track out of our new stadium , well be so close to the pitch now

[Mark]

Originally posted by Foley87@Dec 11 2002, 03:27 PM
i was watching arsenal too

there aint many seast to spare there

yeh , bringin the fans closer to the pitch is so much better

thats y im pleased theyve taken the track out of our new stadium , well be so close to the pitch now
yeah but the capacity is less than half of what it is for the stadiums in Italy B)

[Zizou]

Last night (as has been for most nights in in these past 2 weeks in Milan) it was extremely cold (something about Siberian wind over Italy). I don't blame the fans fornot going.

[Manic Loop]

well many itlain clubs dont get huge gaes really gor bread and buttger games, which top club was it that only has/had about 20,000 cpacity. that surprised me, think it might have been fiorentina before their collapse

[jimlad1981]

parma was the club

zizou as for saying its cold to go watch football, r u a big girls blouse of something?
cold watching football, thats a f****** lame excuse

[Zizou]

Manic - Fiorentina has a capacity of nearly 50,000. I think you're referring to Parma who have a capacity of 28,000. Don't forget Parma only hit it big in the mid 90s, so they're relatively new ;)

Jumkid - I need my balls for future use, so I`d rather not go to a game in the freezing cold.

[jimlad1981]

so u dont go to fball games cause its cold, what are you a puff?

[Zizou]

Listen jimkiddie, in Malta we don't get temperatures below 7 degrees celcius, so nything below that is f***** too cold. I wouldn't go watching a game in the cold there was at the Delle Alpi last Wednesday (like most people did) nor at San Siro on Tuesday (again most people didn't go). So do me a favour softlad and f*** off you t*** :salute

[TheMutts]

I always thought that Italian teams got pretty good crowds. Like Frank said. Guess I was mistaking

[Zizou]

Depends on the team and against whom they're playing. Like a league game would have most of the stadium full with people for most teams, but a coppa italia game doesn`t really see too many faces atthe stadium.