MC Sports Report: A Lesson in Loyalty

Saturday Afternoon watching FC Bari at home

After Naples, our next stop in Italy was Bari, directly east on the Adriatic Sea. I checked to see if their football team was going to be at home and the answer was yes! It's always exciting for me to find a match to attend. Bari would be playing against Vicenza Calcio SpA, a team from Northern Italy not far from Venice.

Like all European countries, football in Italy is divided into divisions. The best teams play in the top division, next best teams play in the second division and so on. The names of the divisions vary from country to country. In Italy, the top division is called Serie A. The second division is Serie B.

F.C. Bari currently plays in Serie B. Since I had never seen a Serie B match before I was really looking forward to it wondering about the quality of play. Bari plays in Stadio San Nicola built for the 1990 World Cup. It seats 58,200 which is probably about 40,000 more seats than a Serie B team needs.

But I've gotten ahead of myself...

When we arrived in Bari we saw an unfamiliar site - an beautiful historic building that looked like a museum that turned out to be an old theater. All around the exterior of the building were life-size cutouts of football players, something that one does not see every day. Turns out, they were hosting an exhibit called "Football Heroes". A few days later I went back for a visit, paid my $8 and went in, and found I was the only person there on a Wednesday morning. Not to surprising during this quiet season. Inside I met Gianfranco who gave me a one-hour personal guided tour featuring jerseys, photos and memorabilia of the greatest football stars not just of Italy, but Europe and beyond. A fun and fascinating warm-up for my Saturday afternoon match.

Museum in Bari with a special exhibition on "Football Heroes"

Gianfranco spoke limited English, but still gave me an informative tour

Often times, figuring out how to get a ticket to a match has been a challenge. This time it was easy. Our Airbnb host made a few calls and directed me to the betting shop around the corner and after showing my passport they printed out a $17 ticket in no time.

Figuring out how to get to the match can also be a challenge since I use public transportation but again, this time it was easy. It was a 10 minute walk from our apartment to the Bus Station and for $1.20 I rode a city bus to the stadium with a handful of other fans. The bus got me there much earlier than necessary.

Stadio San Nicola in better days. Built for the 1990 World Cup, now home to F.C. Bari

Entering the grounds involved the usual security checks then scanning my ticket and going through the head-to-toe turn styles. I made my way up to the concourse and that's when I realized that the wind was blowing through the stadium like I was inside a Boeing wind tunnel and it was freezing. It was a solid hour before the match started and the place was almost empty which made it seem even colder.

I found someone who looked like an usher. After examining my reserved seat ticket he seemed to say in his limited English that my section was closed for some reason so I could sit anywhere.

One hour before the match got underway

I was told I could sit anywhere I'd like - and that meant anywhere!

I found a place out further out of the wind on the main level, ate my packed lunch (Thank you Debbie) decided to move up to the 2nd level in the hopes that the wind wasn't blowing quite as hard. I followed a couple of Bari fans to the 200 Level and good news - warm sunshine and calm air.

Bari supporters

As it got closer to match time, the F.C. Bari supporters filled-in their end, while all 50 away supporters from Vicenza were huddled at the other end.

Compare and Contrast:

• Bari - 15th in the table, home in a stadium that was less than 20% full but a supporters section that was jammed with loyal fans hoping for a win and the 3 points that could help them move up the table and someday soon...a return to Serie A.
• Vicenza - 7th in table, 800 kms away from home with 50 super loyal fans was also hoping for a win, 3 points and a return to Serie A.

Away supporters separated by Plexiglas in their own section

View the video below to hear the Bari fans singing their support just before the match got underway. It gave me goose bumps then, and again just now when I played it for Debbie...

Now the match. If you have read any of my football blogs before, you'll know that I really like the game but I'm not that knowledgeable about how the game is actually played. So take this with a grain of salt, but I have to say that neither team looked that great to me. In fact, pretty poor! Vicenza played better in the first half but no one scored so it was 0-0 at the half. In the second half, it looked like more of the same until Vicenza went ahead in the 72nd minute with a nice looking goal by Andrea Petagna, their 19 year-old striker from Trieste. And that's how it ended. Lots of sunshine but cold. Some pretty mediocre football but still a great day out watching the world's most popular game.

The small band of loyal supporters who traveled all the way from Northern Italy went crazy. Their reward, came after the match when the Vicenza players came over to their corner of the stadium and acknowledged them by applauding their supporters with hands above their heads.

My take away  - Loyalty comes in all sizes from 50 super fans who traveled 500 miles to support their team to 3,000 home-town fans who went home disappointed in their teams' performance on the pitch that day, but I am sure they will be back for the next match cheering, chanting and even whistling when they don't like a call.

Win or lose - Loyalty was on display by both Bari and Vicenza fans

Until next time.

Michael

Extra! Extra! Read All About The Senior Nomads!

Wednesday night, February 25th was sort of like Christmas Eve. We knew the story about our travels would be in the New York Times the next day - so it was hard to sleep. And hard not to peek under the "tree" in the middle of the night. We woke up to wonderful messages from friends and family who had seen the story on-line already since it had posted while we were sleeping. What an amazing feeling to see our lives chronicled this way!

We owe a great big thanks to the New York Times for the coverage they gave our adventures. If you didn't see the story, Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/garden/retirement-plan-an-airbnb-travel-adventure.html?mwrsm=Email&_r=0 It has been humbling as well as gratifying to receive comments from around the world and are now swamped with e-mails from new readers of our blog. It would appear there are many of people out there ready to follow their dreams, too! We hope we can help.

Our son in Seattle sent this picture of the actual coverage in the paper. We were blown away!

Special thanks to Steven Kurutz who wrote the story. He interviewed us for an hour and a half by phone when we were in Essaouria, Morocco and then a week later for another hour when we were in Marrakech. He was patient and engaging and we think he did a great job of capturing essence of why we're Senior Nomads and our chosen lifestyle. Thank you Steve. Thanks also to photographer, Andy Haslam, who made us look so good in our cozy Paris airbnb.

Photo by Andy Haslam taken in our Paris airbnb

The idea to publicize our story started around a year ago when we had been on the road for 9 months. We were having the time of our lives living full-time in Airbnb apartments all over Europe. We thought someone at Airbnb might like to know about us, and our goal was to help them inspire others to do what we are doing. So, we wrote a blind e-mail outlining our experiences and sent it to three contact addresses we found on the website. We were pleasantly surprised when we got a reply a few weeks later from Airbnb's communications department. We made friends with two great people on the staff who loved our story and they set about finding ways to share it. We also had a great visit to their headquarters in San Francisco last fall when we were there to renew our visas at the French Consulate.

The French visas that help us travel easily throughout Europe's Schengen Zone

Voila! Six months later, the New York Times helped us reach our goal of telling their readers about how we decided to reinvent our retirement.

We started our blog almost two years ago because friends and family wanted to stay in touch and to vicariously enjoy our adventures. We never intended them for a larger audience, but that has certainly changed in the last two weeks! Thank you to the thousands of readers who have visited the blog! It's a little overwhelming - but from the feedback and emails we've received you've enjoyed reading them, so we are encouraged to keep posting. You have asked great questions about how we manage to live this lifestyle and we will be adding blogs with answers and tips along with our usual travel stories.

On the road again - packed up in Paris and heading for Italy

Today is day 610 of our Senior Nomads traveling lifestyle. We've now stayed in 48 airnbnb's, visited 29 countries and explored 69 cities!  Currently we are enjoying time in Rhodes, Greece. We are truly blessed and grateful for this opportunity and look forward to sharing it with you - and encouraging you to live your dream.

Debbie and Michael
Senior Nomads

Football in Naples - A Night I'll Never Forget

Over the last 18 months I have attended 15 football matches all across Europe. Often times, just figuring out how to buy a ticket, where the stadium is and getting to and from the matches has been a story in itself. This was especially true in Naples where we spent ten days in early February seeking the sun and warmth in Southern Italy. We didn't find either of those - but, for me as least I did find a football match. SSC Napoli, the first division club in Naples was having a great season in 3rd place behind Juventus and Roma. But the match that fit our schedule was a mid-week Coppa Italia quarter-final match against Inter-Milan with an 8:45 pm kick-off. Debbie wasn't too disappointed since she could cook her favorite dinner of garlic and clams while I was out (neither being a favorite of mine).

Stadio San Paolo seats 60,000

Fans will never forget Maradona who played in Naples 1984-91

Napoli won the Coppa Italia last year. Going into the match with Inter, they were on a four game winning streak while Inter was struggling in 13th place in Serie A.

Getting a ticket to the Wednesday night match was pretty straight forward. I learned there was a Box Office for events of all types just a few minutes walk from our apartment. When I arrived I found out that all the top priced tickets were sold-out which was not a problem for me since I always buy the cheapest ticket I can find.

Only tickets left were in my budget - $12 in Curva B

I typed the address of the stadium into Google Maps on my phone and determined that the best way to get to the match was by bus. I arrived at the bus stop in plenty of time and then waited, and waited for the #151. I should haves known ... not only am I in Italy, I am in Southern Italy. These things take time.

I  had lots of small change ready to buy my ticket when I boarded the bus. But after waiting quite awhile, I asked a woman, who was also waiting for the bus, about how much tickets cost. That's when I learned you had to buy bus tickets ahead of time from a newsagent or tobacconist. Really? Not on the bus?

I started running up the street looking for a place to buy a bus ticket but everything was closed. Then I spotted a Metro station. In some cities like Paris, a Metro ticket also works on the bus so I headed for the Metro station. That's when I saw the #151 stopped at a light so I just took a chance and jumped on. My plan was to show the driver my football ticket and a handful of change along with my best human relation skills with the hope that he would take pity on me and let me on.

In fact, the driver didn't even blink when I got on a very packed bus. I turned around and found dozens of people wearing SSC Napoli scarfs, obviously headed to the match! My fellow bus mates spoke no English and my Italian vocabulary is less that 10 words but we became instant friends and in particular I found a great "mate" in Ricki.

 Over the next 45 minutes I used my Google Translate app to engage my new found friends asking all sorts of football questions about Napoli and the match. That's when I found out that some of the fans were also sitting in Curva B just like me and through various hand signals I got the impression that I could follow them to find the right gate. Whew!

Once off the bus my new best friend Ricki and his girlfriend Antonella took me under their wing and guided me through tens of thousands of fans making their way into the stadium. On the way to our gate I noticed that Ricki was opening a quart-size bottle of Peroni beer which he planned on sharing with me. My read of the social situation indicated I had no choice but to accept his hospitality. So we passed the bottle back and forth and swigged as we dodged people, cars and Vespas. Ricki insisting that I take my full allotment.

By the time we got to our gate we were one of thousands of  fans trying to squeeze through tight metal turnstiles to get through security. I showed my ID, got frisked and together we ran up three long flights of stairs to our seats near the top of the stadium. "Seating" in the Curvas is actually a place where fans stand (even though there are seats). We  literally found the last few spots in one of the upper rows where we could "stand" as the match got underway.


View from our "seats"

My Guardian Angels - Ricki and Antonella

The first half was pretty even. A handful of yellow cards. Lots of back and forth with few real shots on goals and no score after 45 minutes.

At halftime, since Ricki and Antonella did not speak English, I struck up a conversation with some college students who were standing next to us. During the break we covered both Italian and American football as well as Italian and American politics. I also got a lesson in Coppa Italia and Serie A (Italian 1st Division) football and a reminder that Maradona played his Serie A football in Naples.

Obligatory Selfie

In the 2nd half Inter dominated with more possession time and shots on goal but alas when the clock reached the 90 minute mark the score was 0-0. Many stadiums show how much extra time is added for injuries, or make a PA announcement but not in Naples so there was no way to know how much time remained in the match.


50,000 + near sell-out for the Wednesday night match.

A minute later the Inter defense broke down right in front of the net. That's when the Napoli forward from Argentina, Gonzolo Hiquain, spotted daylight to the left of the goalie and boom, he poked in the winning goal!

The stadium went crazy, and I mean really crazy. With the win Napoli moved on to the semi-finals of this year's Coppa Italia and a chance of repeating in 2014-15.

After 10 minutes of all-out pandemonium, Ricki motioned that it was time to go! We scurried back to where the bus dropped us off - but it quickly became apparent that with all the traffic and thousands of fans leaving the match, finding a municipal bus wasn't going to happen any time soon. Maybe tomorrow morning, but not tonight.  It was just plain crazy with people, cars, and motorcycles  jostling to leave without a single traffic cop or any other visible exit plans in sight.

Ricki did, however, seem to have a lot of friends who, like us, where scheming to get home. Together (along with scores of others) they chased down taxis, but never seemed to score one. I couldn't tell if they were negotiating with the driver for time, distance the number of passengers - or "just get me home - I don't care what it costs!"

Around 11:30 pm as the crowds were dwindling, Ricki signaled to me and Antonella to come over to a big white van and he made it clear we should pile in. I followed his lead - not knowing where we where headed. At this point  any mode of transport that got me close enough to walk home worked for me. I would say the van had seats for 16 but within five minutes there was over 30 people jammed inside  Because of the win it was a happy bunch of fans-in-a-van. I don't think it would have been so congenial otherwise. 

The escape vehicle

 I got the brilliant idea of opening Google Maps so I could follow our "progress" and it appeared we were headed toward the center of Naples which I figured was good.

After almost an hour of stop-and-go traffic, I started to recognize where we were and I wasn't far from home!  Ricki grabbed my shoulder, and using his best Italian hand gestures indicated that I should get out at the next stop light. The other sardines made room for me to squeeze out the door and before I knew it I was standing on the curb yelling "grazie mille!

I checked my watch and it was midnight. No one asked me to pay anything for the ride. I plugged our address into  Google Maps and it said I was less than a mile from home. Off I went and twenty minutes later I was in our airbnb apartment and crawled into bed safe and sound.

In a perfect world I would return Ricki and Anatellos incredible hospitality in Seattle and escort them to a Sounders match but unfortunately I don't know how I'd ever find them again. Unfortunately,  we never exchanged contact information but maybe they will find this blog post somehow surfing the web for S.C.C. Napoli.

What a great night. True story!