AS Roma

To understand a Roma matchday you have to understand that Rome is a divided city, and that Roma are the half that thinks of itself as the real one. The capital has two big clubs sharing one stadium, Roma and Lazio, and the split is social and geographic as much as sporting: Roma draw historically on the working-class centre and the old neighbourhoods, above all Testaccio, where the club was effectively born, and their support carries a fierce, romantic, us-against-everyone identity. The badge is the she-wolf of Rome itself, which tells you how completely the club and the city are fused in the fans' heads.

The figure who embodies all of it is Francesco Totti, the golden boy from the Roman suburbs who spent his entire twenty-five-year career at the club, turned down richer offers to stay, and is treated less like a former player than like a patron saint. That one-club devotion is the emotional core of Roma, a club that has won the league only three times and trades far more on passion and belonging than on trophies. The modern era is steadier: since 2020 the club has been owned by the American billionaire Dan Friedkin, and in 2022, under José Mourinho, Roma won the inaugural Europa Conference League, their first UEFA trophy and their first European silverware since the 1961 Fairs Cup, and the excuse for one of the great open-top-bus celebrations the city has seen. The dugout has churned since, but the Conference League night is the recent high the fans hold onto.

The ground itself is a complication you should know about going in. The Stadio Olimpico is a municipal athletics stadium in the Foro Italico complex north of the centre, shared with Lazio, and because it was built for the Olympics it has a running track that pushes every stand back from the pitch. It is big and it can be loud, but it is not a tight, purpose-built football box, and the distance from the action is a genuine and common complaint.

Getting there

The stadium is a few kilometres north of the historic centre, across the Tiber in the Foro Italico, and there is no metro station at the door, so the trip takes a little planning. The route most people use is the tram: take Metro line A to Flaminio, come up to Piazzale Flaminio and catch tram 2 to its terminus at Piazza Mancini, then walk down to the river and cross the Ponte Duca d'Aosta footbridge, which brings you out right at the stadium. An alternative is Metro A to Ottaviano and then bus 32 up to the Piazzale della Farnesina near the ground. Give yourself margin, because the tram and buses are swamped around kickoff.

Making a day of it

Here the geography of the rivalry matters, and it is a genuinely useful thing to know rather than trivia. The obvious bar district by the stadium is around Ponte Milvio, the ancient Roman footbridge just north, a lovely spot crammed with bars and restaurants. The catch is that Ponte Milvio sits on the northern approach and is often described as more Lazio-leaning territory, so if you are going to a Roma game in Roma colours, it may not be the natural place to drink. Roma support gathers instead on the southern side of the complex, along Viale delle Olimpiadi, where spots like the Bar della Musica are where fans mass to greet the team bus before a big one.

The truth is that the immediate stadium area is not where you want to spend your afternoon regardless. The far better plan is to make your pre-match in the city, and specifically in the neighbourhoods where Roma actually comes from. Testaccio, the old working-class quarter across the river to the south, is the club's spiritual home, the site of its early stadium and still full of genuine Roman trattorie and neighbourhood bars; Trastevere next door is the livelier, more crowded version of the same idea. Eat a plate of cacio e pepe or a Roman-Jewish fried artichoke where the locals do, then travel out to the Foro Italico closer to kickoff.

Inside, and where the noise is

The heart of a Roma matchday is the Curva Sud, the home end behind the south goal, one of the celebrated ultra ends in European football and the source of the tifo, the flags and the singing. On a derby or a big European night the Curva Sud is a wall of colour and noise that lives up to every bit of the reputation, and it is the reason neutrals put the Olimpico on their list. The honest caveats are the two already mentioned: the running track holds you back from the pitch, and the tighter security and named-ticket regime of modern Italian football have taken some of the raw edge off the old ultra scene. For a routine league game against lesser opposition, expect a big stadium ticking over rather than the full cauldron; for the derby, expect the cauldron. If you have a choice and you want the atmosphere, aim for the Curva Sud end; the trick fans pass on is that the Distinti Sud, the section right beside it, lets you sit next to that wall of noise without needing a Curva membership, and it is the easier ticket to buy. Away fans are put up the other way, in the Curva Nord that is Lazio's home for their own games.

This is the whole Olimpico singing Roma Roma Roma before kickoff:

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The derby, and a careful word

The Derby della Capitale, Roma against Lazio, is one of the most intense and most fraught fixtures in the sport, and a visitor should understand what sits under it rather than wander into it blind. This is not a friendly cross-town rivalry; it has a long, genuine history of violence and of politics, with Lazio's hardcore ultra scene in particular carrying open far-right and neo-fascist associations that have drawn repeated bans and condemnation. The darkest single fact is from 1979, when a Lazio supporter, Vincenzo Paparelli, was killed in the stands by a distress flare fired from the Roma end, a death that still shadows the fixture. The practical point for a visitor is simple: if your trip happens to fall on a derby, treat it as a serious occasion, keep colours and opinions to yourself around the wrong end, and understand that the edge you are feeling is real and not for an outsider to make light of.

The songs

The anthem is "Roma Roma Roma," written by the Roman singer-songwriter and lifelong fan Antonello Venditti, and it is played and belted out before every single home game; hearing the whole Curva Sud sing it as the teams come out is the moment to arrive early for. His other Roma song, "Grazie Roma," comes out for the biggest days. Between them they capture the particular thing about this club, which is that supporting Roma is treated less as a sporting choice than as a fact of birth.

Merch

The official AS Roma Store has a big presence in the centre of Rome, most usefully on the main shopping streets around the Corso, which is far more convenient than the ground for a browse, plus retail at the stadium on a matchday. The city-centre store is the easy option if you are sightseeing anyway.

Getting a ticket

For an ordinary league game this is manageable. Roma sell single-match tickets online through the official club channel, and a normal fixture against mid-table opposition is usually available to a visitor. Keep the standard Italian rules in mind: every ticket is personal and named, so travel with matching identification for each seat, the name can be checked against your ID at the gate, strictly in the away sector and for the big fixtures, and the cheaper sectors can carry extra conditions. The Curva ends and the big fixtures are a step up in difficulty and can involve additional fan-card requirements, so if the atmosphere end is the goal, arrange it well ahead.

The derby and the marquee European nights are another matter, selling out fast and sometimes carrying sales restrictions. Reselling above face value is illegal in Italy, and because the tickets are named, one bought off a stranger or a third-party resale site can simply fail the check at the turnstile. So buy through the club for a league game, use official hospitality or an authorised package for a sold-out big one, and treat the grey market as both a legal and a practical risk rather than a shortcut.

One last thing

Take Roma for the passion, not the polish. The Olimpico is a big, slightly compromised bowl with a running track, but the Curva Sud on song, under the she-wolf, singing Venditti as the teams walk out, is one of the genuine experiences in Italian football, and it comes wrapped in a club that treats itself as the soul of the city. Eat in Testaccio where it all started, get out to the Foro Italico by tram, keep a sensible distance from the politics of the derby, and let the south end carry you.

Ticket rules, fan-card requirements and the club's fortunes all change; check anything time-sensitive the week you travel, and only buy through the club or an authorised seller.