Trestina – Sansepolcro 27-08-2023 Preliminary round Italian Cup Serie D. Single match
With Serie A and the cadet tournament having already started a week ago (first with the Italian cup and then with the championship), the fourth national series is also preparing to begin. It starts with the Coppa Italia Serie D, which includes a preliminary round intended only for newly promoted teams and those who finished last year in the bottom of the table. Being in Umbria I decide to follow the match between the recovered Trestina (last year relegated after the play out against Mobilieri Ponsacco) and the newly promoted Sansepolcro, landed in the fourth series after the daring overtaking on the last day against Ellera and consequent victory of the Umbrian Excellence championship (although Tuscan in fact, Sansepolcro has been competing in the various championships in the Umbrian league since 1991-92).
Although it is only a classic summer match, I find various points that stimulate my curiosity: first of all, the match is played at the “Lorenzo Casini”, home of Trestina Calcio, located in the small hamlet of Città di Castello of not even two thousand inhabitants, which sometimes also hosts asylum in their own municipality. Seeing and touching new stadiums, not behind a plastic box that we call a television, is not the only reason given that Sansepolcro, already for a few matches last year, saw a very organized ultras group activated. Something which, I can confidently say for all the times I have passed through these parts over the years, had never been seen, resulting in groups of improvised fans or kids caught up in the adrenaline of particular matches.
Sunday 27 August, as the kick-off is set for 4pm, I set off calmly to cover the approximately 50 kilometers that separate me from the small hamlet located along the upper Tiber valley and once I arrive, I can also take a tour to steal other important details starting from the small railway station which is part of the historic Umbrian Central Railway; now only a few trains pass on some routes and some others have been replaced by buses in the name of an unspecified progress. However, those like me who have had the opportunity and the fortune to take it know what I’m talking about: the singularity of its route lies in the stops not only in the city but also in small villages far from the inhabited centers, blending everything into something unique of its kind. .
Coming back to us, once my personal tour is over, I take the road that leads me to the small Umbrian stadium, which has a capacity of 800 people and is made up of two stands: the covered one, far from the pitch and intended for the hosts and, on the opposite side, the guest sector, which is a not very spacious and uncovered iron grandstand. Added to these two sectors is a straight section where you can follow the match standing up. Also very impressive is the entrance to the pitch from the premises with the name of the stadium shown at the top and the small box office where you can purchase tickets. The cost of the ticket today is set at 12 euros and frankly, for a round of the Italian Cup, it is a bit too expensive compared to the standards; Nonetheless, the audience in the stands is around 500, including around a hundred guests.
Undoubtedly the local fans follow with great passion the fortunes of the Umbrian team, which is the flagship of this vast area and which has been continuously playing in the Serie D championship for nine years, even surpassing its own municipality of Città di Castle. For a small village like Trestina, Serie D is equivalent to Serie A for Empoli or Chievo a few seasons ago. Unfortunately, in the local stand there will only be simple fans watching the match (as well as numerous and noisy Sansepolcro fans who for the occasion prefer the comfortable covered stand to the narrow guest sector) but they will nevertheless follow their players’ plays with excitement and apprehension on the pitch, even though he didn’t make himself heard with chants or anything else.
In the away sector there are many fans who have arrived from Sansepolcro and, a quarter of an hour before the start of the match, are joined by around thirty ultras from the Borgo, another name used by Juventus fans, who set up along the straight under a banner bearing the postal code of Sansepolcro, mounted behind them covering the writing FORZA TRESTINA, while the other banners will be hung very far away on the opposite side.
As the teams enter the field, the Tuscan ultras light a blue smoke bomb to start the contest and wave a black and white flag. In the first half, despite the heat and the narrow sector, they do their utmost to try to support their team with discreet clapping to accompany the chants, but also with chants in response, even if everything only lasts a quarter of an hour, then the cheering will become less continuous and more interspersed with pauses, even prolonged ones. Although there are flashes of pyrotechnics and flames that alternate with the pauses.
In the second half, in the first minutes there will still be chants accompanied by discreet clapping, but then also in this second half what has already been seen in the first will be repeated with chants alternating with more or less long pauses. There will also be no shortage of jovial choirs, which makes me think in some way of a contamination (of people or simply of style) with the OPPINI GROUPa group that follows the Dukes, the city’s basketball team and that fans of the world of cheering know well.
In the final part of the match, the heat prevails, the result is not unlocked and the penalty kicks that reward Sansepolcro will be decisive. The Tuscan team will therefore face the Umbrian side Orvietana in next Sunday’s match, this time within the friendly walls of the “Buitoni” stadium. The penalty that gives the certainty of victory and passage to the next round is signed by Giacomo Gorini who makes both his teammates on the pitch and the ultras in the stands rejoice, embracing each other in an ideal embrace to celebrate.
Promising debut for the Sansepolcro ultras in this new category, but we must now understand and test the validity of this beautiful group tested with a counterpart and with time, to understand if we are faced with yet another meteor or something more and valid. Fingers crossed in the village…
Marco Gasparri
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2023-09-10 10:02:03
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