Rome prepares for the capital derby A trip to the Italian capital before the match worth a whole season

"Football is the last sacred representation of our time. It is ritual in the background, even if it is evasion. While other sacred representations, even the mass, are in decline, football is the only one left to us." So wrote Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose birth centenary was celebrated a few days ago, referring to football, of which he was a great fan. PPP's passion for football began in the stands of the Dall'Ara, where he used to go to support his Bologna team, and was then reinforced during his years in Rome, where, as the great metropolitan observer that he was, he experienced football in its entirety, from the reality of the fields of his beloved suburbs to the stands of the Olimpico as a correspondent for L'Unità. It was from the stands of the Olimpico that he wrote a reportage on a derby between Roma and Lazio in 1957 with the emblematic title 'Er morto puzzerà tutta la settimana' (The dead will stink all week).

"Er morto puzzerà tutta la settimana". A metaphor. A particularly strong metaphor, true. But it fully expresses the spirit in which Rome faces the days following a derby. In most cases there is a "winner" and there is a "vanquished", "er morto" in fact, to whom pity is almost never granted and who for the whole of the following week (in the rosiest of hypotheses) will have to suffer teasing, mockery and every other kind of harassment from the fan of the team that won the derby. That said, it seems something quite normal, but in Rome almost nothing when it comes to football is normal or at least within the limits of the ordinary.

The truth is that this rivalry, this perennial confrontation, this talk of Lazio and Roma in every place and occasion, essentially makes one indispensable to the other. Laziality without Roma would be something else, certainly a different and less "rich" feeling, and vice versa being Romanisti without Lazio.

Rome lives the week of its derby with its typical visceral, childish, desperate passion, of two fans rich in history who almost never experience moments of glory equal to their immense passion and for whom a derby win can radically change the meaning of a season. Rome, locked in its noisy silence between faith and superstition, is ready for the match, with a capital P, and whatever the winner, one thing is certain, as always: the dead will stink all week.