Monday 30th January 2023 8:45pm – Serie A – The Dacia Arena, Udine
Such is the often fragile nature of football finances and associated scandals in Italy, there are few teams that can claim to have had a place in Serie A for more than twenty years. Juventus, Fiorentina, AC Milan and Lazio have all suffered enforce relegations in the last few decades. But one club that has been a constant in the table throughout all of the turmoil is Udinese.
Udinese you say? If we were now playing pointless, I reckon the club would be the best (worst?) answer for that question posed. And how about as a follow-up, where do they actually come from? I’ve seen some shocking videos (ahem) in my time where people have been asked to pin point various famous countries, cities or landmarks. Even some of my work colleges struggle to reference exactly where London is on a map – surely this has the perfect makings of a prime-time TV show? My guess was that from a random sample of 100 people in London, only 5 would be able to successfully locate Udinese on a map – Danny, slightly less forgiving than me, suggested just two.
Of course, Udinese is not a place, it is a football team who play in the city of Udine, the historical capital of the Friuli region, which gives its name to the stadium where the team play. If you were looking at a map of Italy right now, find Venice in the top right corner, trace your finger along the coast to the east, towards the Slovenian border and go north at Palmanova, which is essentially what we had done on Monday.
A beautiful, crisp Monday morning awaited us as we took the short train ride from Mestre into Venice. We hopped on the Water Bus number 1 and sailed down the Grand Canal. It appeared we had stumbled upon “off season” in Venice – a city that welcomes, in varying ways, over 5.5m visitors a year. A chilly Monday in January was as far from peak season as you can get I’d imagine.
Our first stop was naturally the Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo, almost on the furthest tip of Venice and the penultimate stop of the water bus. We skirted the stadium, hoping for a magic door so we could peer inside. The club are famed for their innovative kit designs, and a previous away top had proved the inspiration for Lewes’ current away shirt, a fact I was prepared to use to gain entry into the ground if we had to resort to platitudes. But that wasn’t necessary as Danny found an unlocked portal and we sneaked in and got our fill of pictures, before quietly leaving before we were spotted.
We headed east after a superb lunch among the locals in a tiny side street trattoria, where the two option menu was chalked on the board and there wasn’t a whiff of a tourist (we weren’t classing ourselves as tourists at this point – after all, tourists don’t get to see inside the Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo, do they?), arriving as the sun was setting and the ne’er do gooders, as my Nan would have said, came out to congregate around the railway station. Tripadvisor had suggested, dare I say even advised, not to hang around these parts as, according to SoloTraveller23 “you cannot walk down the street opposite the station without being offered drugs, women or kebabs”. Five minutes after arriving at our hotel, we were on our way.
Wade through the less salubrious streets, past the Irish Bar and you find the heart of Udine, a city of fine architecture, pavement cafes and stylish locals. It’s certainly worth the walk to see that inner beauty. We had no time to sip on espressos, nibble on focaccia or indulge in gelato as we had Monday Night Football, Italian style to enjoy. The only challenge was how to get to the stadium right on the edge of town.
Stadio Friuli, named after the region, opened in 1976 as a typical Italian municipal stadium. The advantage of that was the stadium was built by the local government, the disadvantage was it was 3/4th open to the elements and had a running track. Oh, and it was plonked right on the edge of town, about a 2 1/2 mile walk from anything resembling civilization.
The stadium hosted three group games in the 1990 World Cup but in these parts, where the winter’s can be bitterly cold – the city is the most northerly in Italy, not too far from the borders with Austria and Slovenia – so having an open air stadium wasn’t exactly fan friendly. In 2013 the stadium underwent a huge redevelopment that saw the three open air stands demolished, the famous curved main stand upgraded and the dreaded athletics track removed. In January 2016 work was complete and the ground was renamed as the Dacia Arena.
Having taken more than a reasonable amount of wrong terms on our walk, we finally arrived and did the customary “window shopping” of the merchandise stands outside the ground. Either the Udinese fans were fickle or it was the trend in these parts to buy merchandise for a host of other clubs when you came to a game. Inter, Milan, Juve, Roma and Lazio scarves were on sale, but not quite as bizarre as in the official club shop where they had Bolton Wanderers, Welsh Rugby and Hellas Verona, tonight’s opposition, shirts on sale.
The stadium is certainly impressive, using the different coloured, random seat formation, which apparently makes the crowds look bigger on TV. The home fans had taken up their position in the Curva Nord and were already firing up the tunes when we got into the ground. Panini had once again gone large, with people giving out thousands of albums for their new Calciatori collection, which you would imagine would end up on the pitch at some point if the performance was not to the satisfaction of the fans.
Despite their position towards the bottom of the table, it was the visitors who started off on the front foot. Within 5 minutes Danny and I had used up all of the Kevin Lasagna, Verona’s striker, jokes and the away side had taken the lead, through an own goal. But that was as good as it got for them. Udinese, sitting in that no man’s land of 7th place in Serie A, leading a pack of six teams who will ultimately fall just short of a European place, dominated the remaining 86 minutes, peppering the Verona goal and finally got their equaliser in the 21st minute through Lazar Samardžić. But they simply couldn’t find a way through the stoic Verona defence to find the winner.
With the temperatures dropping below zero, the 1,000 or so Hellas fans fired up some flares near the end to warm themselves up, celebrating a good point for the team in their fight against relegation. We headed outside to the bus stop which depending on which website you believed may have had a bus running back to the station at 11pm or one at 7am the following morning. A small group of fans were already there, which was a good sign, but then a people carrier arrived and 6 of them piled in it. We nervously checked our watches, scanning the road and just as we were at the point of resigning ourselves to another long, error-strewn walk back to our hotel a bus arrived. Job done, we had conquered football tourism in another city.
How to get to Udine: Fly to Venice from the UK from multiple airports. Most budget airlines now serve Marco Polo airport, whilst Ryanair also offer routes to Treviso. From Venice airport get one of the two local buses that depart from outside departures to Mestre (about 20 mins) then a train (there’s ones every 30 minutes) to Udine which takes around 90 minutes. Alternatively, you can fly to Trieste with Ryanair, although this isn’t a daily service) and get the train direct from the airport to Udine – a journey of around 30 minutes.
How to get to the Dacia Arena: The ground is a long walk out of town – allow yourself at least an hour from the historic center of Udine. Alternatively, bus number 9 runs irregularly from the train station to the ground in around 15 minutes. You can buy tickets from vending machines at the station or onboard. On your way back wait at the bus stop outside Curva Nord.
How to get a ticket for the Dacia Arena: Bar the games against AC, Inter and Juventus, buying a ticket for a game isn’t problematic. With a capacity of over 25,000 and average attendances around 20,000 tickets can be bought in advanced from the club website, with prices starting from €15 in the Curve Nord. There’s a walkway across the top of the seats in this area meaning you can get a great feel for being in the Ultras without actually being in among the chaos and mayhem. You need to bring ID with you (passport, driving licence, UK Parachuting club pass) and they are checked on entry.
Where to stay: Udine has some nice parts and some that you don’t really want to explore. The price of hotels reflects this split. If you simply need a room for the night for the football then the Hotel Principe opposite the station is cheap (£50 for a night) and ticks the basic boxes. If you want a little more luxury then the Astoria Hotel in Piazza XX Septembre will be a vote winner at £120 a night.
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