"The home of calcio" Italy by Calcio

Lovely Italy! My second home country (at least it feels like that) and the home of the best football clubs in the world.

Sorry for that everyone from Spain and England... ;)

Milan, Juventus, Inter and Roma are wellknown team for everyone who likes football. But there is so much more to see in Italy.

There are five divisions with professional teams, from Serie A (first division) all the way down to Serie D.

In Italy football is a religion, everyone likes it, and everyone have their own favourite team that they follow. Of course not everyone goes to the stadium for watching the games, but with tons of tv-programs, 3-4 daily sport newspapers and hundreds of sport-magazines there is no problem to follow your team, even if you stay at home.

The Serie A contains 20 teams this season. The first game every week is played at 18.00 at saturday evening. Then another one at 20.30. Most of the matches then are played at Sunday, at 15.00, while the best game of the week is moved until 20.30 on Sunday evening.
With so many teams from the north of Italy it's some weekends possible to see three Serie A-games during two days. All the league-games you'll find at "www.lega-calcio.it" that also has an english translated site.

The italian supporter-culture is a fantastic thing, that takes a long time just to understand.

There are so many people living for the football, and for their team. Mostly called "ultras" which is an italian word for "hardcore supporter". Then there are also the more normal supporters, in italian called "tifosi".

The italian supporter-culture, with ultras-groups to every team in Serie A, B, C1 and also a lot of them in C2 and D, is famous in the whole world. The supporters creates a fantastic atmosphere every Sunday through the whole Italy.
The italian supporters first got inspirated from the english supporters in the end of the 1960-ties/beginning of the 1970-ties, but then totally re-organized the culture.

They create amazing choreographies for the big games, as you'll see inside my pages, with the help of papers, flags, firecrackers and 10 thousands of people.

The bad part of the culture is the violence. Italy has big trouble with violent supporters, and at some highrisk-games it might actually be quite dangerous to go there. Specially if you aren't used to football, and don't know where to go or stand.

But that shouldn't take away your will for seeing an italian football-game. It is an experience for your life, I promise!

• Pros:The fantastic football and supporters
• Cons:The violence
• In a nutshell:Best football-country in the world