FOOTBALL CULTURE. SERIE A. SERIE B.
“Typical Genoa”: What’s It Like to Watch the Derby Della Lanterna in London
When the draw for the Coppa Italia second round was made last month, one fixture immediately stood out as Genoa and Sampdoria were pitted against each other.
One of the fiercest derbies in Italy, the Derby della Lanterna had been missing from calcio’s menu since 2022 after the Rossoblu’s promotion the following season coincided with the Blucerchiati’s relegation.
So, having visited Marassi to watch both Sampdoria and Genoa in August, Destination Calcio decided to take in the derby in a slightly different location.
The names of some of the interviewees have been changed at their request.
With the Europa League getting underway and some Carabao Cup third round action, Wednesday night seemed the perfect chance to watch some football.
But in this corner of Pimlico, you’ll struggle to find anyone interested in Arsenal, West Ham, Manchester United or Liverpool.
By the time we arrive at The Constitution just before 7pm, the place is empty with Premier League Years playing across three screens.
“If you’ve not booked, you won’t find a table,” a bartender warns us.
“There’s a pub quiz tonight and every table is taken.”
When we enquire about whether the pub is showing Genoa vs Sampdoria, he shoots us a quizzical look and suggests we head upstairs.
Fitted with some pleasantly old-fashioned pub furniture, the room upstairs is as sparsely populated as the ground floor when we arrive and take a seat at the back.
We’re soon joined by Michele and Gabriele, who immediately recognise us as the journalists who contacted them about watching the Derby della Lanterna with the Genoa Club UK.
As the oldest club in Italy, the Rossoblu take enormous pride in their history, so it’s no surprise that the Genoa British supporters’ club is named after William Garbutt.
The Stockport native managed Genoa for a combined 26 years over two spells and had a revolutionary impact on Italian football. To this day, managers in Italy are referred to as “Mister” because of him.
Garbutt features prominently on the flags Michele and Gabriele hang up in the room, which is swiftly decked in red and blue.
After declining a kind offer for some chocolate, we get chatting to Michele, who founded the Genoa Club UK back in 2019. As Genoa’s impressive museum in Italy explains, there are several Rossoblu official clubs dotted around the world, including in Toronto and New York.
“The club aims to promote Genoa in Britain and nurture the close ties between the oldest football club in Italy and the country we live in,” he explains.
“Our mission is to keep alive the passion for our colours even if far from Liguria and pass it onto the new generations and to the local supporters.”
The room starts filling up and soon it’s standing room only. Two seats are kept empty “for superstition purposes” and you get the feeling everyone knows everyone. And if they don’t, they know someone who knows someone.
It is an eclectic mix of Italian expats, Britons born to Italian parents and even the odd Genoa fan who happens to be passing through London and wouldn’t want to miss the Derby della Lanterna for the world.
There is Salvatore, who sits at the back and has supported Genoa for 61 years, there’s Marco with his girlfriend and two girls who show up decked in red and blue and simply introduce themselves to Michele as friends of a friend.
The welcome is as warm for them as it is for the regulars. As long as you are Genoa, you are among friends tonight.
It is a reminder that for all the best attempts to turn football into a TV show, the sport at its core remains first and foremost about community. Or “Respect, unity, togetherness,” as the T-shirt of one of the fans in attendance reads.
All around us conversations are carried out in a mixture of Italian and English, the tone one of mild optimism punctuated by the angst and fear typical of derby day.
After all, Genoa haven’t beaten Sampdoria in over four years and arrive into the derby on the back of a 2-0 defeat against Venezia.
After holding Inter Milan to a draw on the opening day of the season and beating Monza the following week, Alberto Gilardino’s men were tipped to be the surprise package of the campaign.
That scenario feels like a distant memory now, with Genoa winless since August 24 and 16th in Serie A, one point above the relegation zone.
The Coppa Italia is broadcast by Premier Sport in the UK, but upstairs at The Constitution we are treated to Italian commentary courtesy of Mediaset, with the game streamed via a laptop perched on a table at the front of the room and cast onto a big screen.
Not that any of the commentary is remotely audible over the chants that begin as soon as the players walk out of the tunnel.
“Genoa! Genoa! Genoa, Genoa, Genoa! With red shorts and blue shirts, it’s the symbol of Genoa and our youth,” the room bellows almost as one.
Marassi is famous for its electric atmosphere and it feels like part of the Gradinata Nord has been relocated to south London.
The roar that greets the players on the pitch only gets louder as Genoa start the game on the front foot.
“Let’s have them, lads.” “This lot are s**t, get stuck in.”
But it’s Sampdoria who have the first chance of the game, as Fabio Depaoli beats two defenders and bends his effort just wide of the post.
Genoa’s reply is immediate as Vitinha forces a smart stop from Marco Silvestri, before Milan Badelj seizes on a defensive mistake and sets up Andrea Pinamonti.
As he takes a touch, the room collectively edges forward in their seats.
“F*****g hit it”, someone pleads. Pinamonti obliges and lets fly, the ball flashing past Silvestri and into the top corner.
Bedlam at Marassi and upstairs at The Constitution, where the noise is by now so loud we can barely hear our own thoughts.
God knows how the teams taking part in the pub quiz must be getting on.
Trying to remember who featured in a special episode of Doctor Who in 1976 must be particularly tricky when the ceiling seems about to cave in every time Morten Frendrup bursts forward.
Sampdoria have won just one of their six Serie B matches this season and have already sacked their manager, with Andrea Sottil replacing Andrea Pirlo in the dugout last month.
Pirlo took the Blucerchiati to the promotion play-offs last season, but paid the price for a dismal start to the campaign.
Tonight, however, Sampdoria aren’t going down without a fight. Former Genoa man Massimo Coda equalises almost immediately, but Nicola Leali saves his point-blank effort.
The sighs of relief soon turn to anguish as Romagnoli denies Genoa a second by blocking Morten Thorsby’s effort.
A summer signing from Union Berlin, the Norway international spent three seasons at Sampdoria but has already won Genoa fans over.
“Good lad Morten, nail him,” says Tommaso, who by now is balancing two plates of food on his knees. Remarkably, he doesn’t spill neither his burger nor his onion rings.
If Thorsby gets a pass despite his Sampdoria past, the same courtesy isn’t offered to Coda and Antonio Barreca, who have crossed the Genoese divide in the opposite direction.
“Traitors,” is the succinct verdict from the crowd.
Depaoli and Coda again go close for Samp, before Vitinha blazes over from close range much to the dismay of everyone in the room.
As the first half ends, the general feeling is one of relief mixed with concern. Sampdoria aren’t going away.
“Samp are diabolical at the back, but we are awful. We’re making them look good,” offers one of Salvatore’s friends.
Gabriele agrees: “I don’t understand why we’re sitting so deep. They are almost bottom in Serie B, we should be taking the game to them.”
Downstairs, West Ham’s Carabao Cup tie with Liverpool is on, but with no sound. Federico Chiesa is playing, but nobody seems to notice. Not even his father’s status as Sampdoria hero elicits any particular reaction from Genoa fans.
Instead, as pints are poured and bags of crisps passed around, conversation drifts to non-football matters.
“It’s such a great community,” explains Susy, who is one of the club’s regulars and has brought two younger friends along.
“It’s about meeting long-time friends, making new ones and following Genoa.”
According to the Office for National Statistics, the number of Italian-born people living in the UK rose by 40 percent from 2016, the year Britain voted to leave the European Union, and 2021 to around 280,000.
As per ONS data, approximately half of them live in London. So is the Genoa Club UK also a way to meet fellow expats?
“For some it is,” adds Susy’s friend.
“But I think plenty of people here consider themselves British but are Genoa fans.”
As the second half gets underway, the atmosphere is as febrile as ever. Chances are harder to come by than in the first 45 minutes, but yellow cards flow with abandon.
Referee Federico La Penna dishes out six bookings in the second half, bringing the match total to 10.
Every Sampdoria booking is greeted with a mixture of satisfaction and anger.
“S******s! F*****g s******s,” bellows one of Gabriele’s friends. The refrain remains impressively loud and consistent throughout the 90 minutes.
At Marassi, it’s time for subs, with Vitinha and goalscorer Pinamonti among those being replaced.
Former Liverpool and Sunderland man Fabio Borini, meanwhile, comes on for Sampdoria as Sottil rolls the dice.
Upstairs at The Constitution, optimism has quickly been replaced by frustration. At Gilardino’s tactics, at Genoa’s approach and, one suspects, at life in general.
“What are these changes? If we lose this, it’s on Gilardino,” argues Marco, who by now is looking increasingly exasperated.
As Samp go close to an equaliser with 15 minutes left, a fan simply walks out onto the landing. The nerves are jangling now and it’s clearly too much to take.
Genoa and Sampdoria’s relative lack of success – the Rossoblu haven’t won a major trophy since 1937, while the Blucerchiati‘s last silverware came 30 years ago – has narrowed the focus and made getting one over each other more important than it ever was.
Campanilismo, as the Italians refer to bragging rights, is the very essence of the fixture.
“This is typical Genoa, this,” says Salvatore, who remains a picture of composure.
“I have followed them for 61 years. I know what’s coming. Trust me.”
One more rendition of Genoa! Genoa!, rings around the pub. This, however, is not the kind of rousing effort we witnessed at kick-off, but a release valve to keep dark thoughts at bay for a while longer.
The moment of reckoning soon arrives, as Borini combines brilliantly with fellow sub Gennaro Tutino, planting a superb effort past Leali in front of the Gradinata Sud, which hosts Sampdoria fans.
While it’s pandemonium on the screen, you can hear a pin drop in Pimlico.
“S******s! F*****g s******s.”
For once, you wonder whether this is aimed at Genoa players, who have crumbled under pressure as everyone in the room expected them to.
“I told you, didn’t I?,” Marco tells his girlfriend. “And now we have no strikers on the pitch to take a penalty.”
Sampdoria are in the ascendancy, but two minutes into injury time Genoa break forward and Romagnoli is sent off for taking out David Ankeye.
The levels of vitriol reach new heights as the Blucerchiati defender rather comically protests his innocence, before Fabio Miretti blasts the resulting free-kick and the final chance of the game over the bar.
Off to penalties we go, a cruel way to decide any match, let alone a derby of this magnitude.
“Miretti, oh no. Watch him miss,” quips Salvatore, whose penalty predictions prove almost flawless with every take.
The Juventus loanee does indeed miss, but Leali saves Leonardo Benedetti’s effort and Genoa are back in business. At least until Alessandro Zanoli misses their seventh penalty.
In the kind of strange, cruel circularity that football often serves up, Genoa’s destiny is now the hands of Barreca, a former Rossoblu.
The 29-year-old makes no mistake and the first Derby della Lanterna in two years goes Sampdoria’s way.
The room empties in a flash, bar for a solitary fan who remains in his chair, head in his hands.
He looks absolutely distraught, but eventually even he trudges downstairs where the pub quiz winners are being announced.
Winless in a month and with fixtures against Juventus and Atalanta coming up, optimism is at a premium but Michele remains philosophical.
“We have been bad in the last two games,” he concedes.
“But the Genoani’s motto is ‘No matter what, no matter where, always Genoa’ So we will be here again on Saturday [for the game against Juventus].”
With that he makes his way out himself, before a waitress emerges to clear up the glasses and offers us her commiserations.
When we explain we’re journalists, her relief is evident. “Oh I’m so glad, it feels like there has been a wake in here,” she says.
And, in a footballing sense, there has.
Our Genoa Museo documentary is coming, keep up to date by checking DC TV:
