From an early fascination with stadium architecture, through his love for AC Milan, and on to the choreographies of ultras across Europe and beyond, Giuseppe Romano invites us to look beyond the pitch. To step into the waiting outside the gates, the line for a beer at the old bar, the sigh of a fan in the 90th minute – where the true essence of the Beautiful Game hides.

In his journey, the camera has become a tool of social inquiry, able to narrate the invisible: emotions, fears, rituals, organization, the community bound together by a single, universal language.

Through his testimony – made of away games, passion, and above all human relationships – we discover how every frame can transmit the energy that moves masses of fans every single Sunday.

Origins

“I was fortunate enough to be born into a family that was half artistic – my mother’s side – and half athletic – my father’s side. My father always played football; he was on the pitch until the age of 40. In the ’90s he even went back to playing in the Sicilian leagues: truly “until the very end”… As soon as he stopped playing, he took up cycling. The following year, we were already riding the Maratona dles Dolomites. A real sports fanatic. My mother is an architect, which is why I initially chose to study design. My uncle is a painter. They passed down to me that artistic side, that desire to interpret the world, to think creatively, to speak, to represent what you see in front of you. What I do today is simply the natural connection of these two worlds.

I still have my first camera – my mother gave it to me even before I was born. It’s from 1992, I was born in ’93, and it still works, with film. I still remember AC Milan – Real Sociedad, played in Catania in the summer of ’99. I took photos that, of course, I only saw years later when I was able to develop them. I had taken a couple of shots of the stadium, but even back then it was the people who caught my eye: the Milan shirts, who were cheering, who were happy, who were celebrating. As I grew up, beyond the game itself, I was always interested in this: the people. What they were doing, and why, in a certain moment at the stadium. Capturing and portraying those rituals, the cultural side of sport.

After finishing my design studies in Milan – right during Covid (when we were forbidden to go out and, consequently, to go to the stadium) – I truly realized that I wanted to work with football. In those 15 square meters, I understood that if I had to make sacrifices, I would do them to make that world part of my life. If I had to work twenty hours a day, I wanted it to be for myself and about myself, not for someone else. So, automatically, I decided to try to do what I was most passionate about and see where it would take me.

At first, I was lucky enough to collaborate with Venezia FC. Then, partly out of personal passion – as a Milan fan and season-ticket holder (during university years) – I always brought my camera to San Siro and photographed my friends in the Curva Sud, the ultras in general. It all started with photographing stadiums from an architectural perspective, then the match itself, and finally the entire matchday ritual of a fan: what a person does when he goes to the stadium – the same things I was doing myself.”

Stepping onto the field

“After Covid, I decided to leave Milan, return to Sicily, and start working for Catania and Siracusa, following their rise back from Serie C. From then on, I devoted myself exclusively to sport – specifically, of course, football.

My greatest stroke of luck came when one of the guys working in the Galatasaray social media team called me while I was in Turkey, asking me to shoot a match. I was in Izmir, and they hosted me in Istanbul. I stayed ten days there, met the players, the staff… They welcomed me like family. A peculiarity of Galatasaray was that training was conducted in Italian. There were Mertens, Oliveira, Icardi, Muslera, Torreira – most of the players had played in Italian leagues. Some in Serie B, some who had grown up in youth teams in Italy, even players I hadn’t known had passed through Italian football before returning to Turkey. Even the coach, Okan Buruk, had played for Inter in Italy. I think it was the perfect spark for everyone. We built a bond very naturally. After that experience, one team led to another.

In Turkey, football – and sport as a whole – is something else entirely. Everyone follows their team. When I shot that Galatasaray match, the day before I had gone to see basketball: Gala – Fener. An incredible atmosphere. What surprised me most was that the same people I saw at the basketball game were at the stadium on Sunday for the football Gala – Fener derby. Since the clubs are multi-sport, the same fans cheer for basketball on Saturday, maybe go to volleyball Sunday morning, and then football in the evening – singing the same chants with the same passion for all sports. I think that is something truly unique. Once I even went to a water polo match on a Friday night: packed with people, unbelievable. Things you might only see in Italy in Serie A during a derby. There, it’s normal. When I came back to Italy after that experience, Venezia contacted me again, I began officially shooting for AC Milan and some brands… and everything began to align naturally.”

The social dimension of football

“What I want to convey through my photography is that football goes beyond the pitch. What interests me is the culture around it: everything authentic, everything you could call reportage – which, for me, is simply connection with people. Football is a universal language, understandable to everyone, and its power can be communicated even through a single photograph.

I believe football is one of the few social rituals still capable of enduring, of moving the masses. I’ve always been fascinated by how people move within a stadium: the organization behind a curva, a choreography. I can’t forget a match in Marseille – I wasn’t there for work, I ended up there almost by chance. The fans had made a choreography to honor the death of the Pope.

Seeing and understanding how these choreographies are prepared, but above all how they rise in just 30 seconds when the team enters the pitch, is unique to me: an act of engineering beyond the ordinary. Many times, organized support is spoken of negatively; ultras are often painted with a single brushstroke – as uneducated street people. But I’ve met men with only middle school education who could be compared to engineers. Madmen doing mad things thanks to personal experience matured through decades of support, of stadium life. People who’ve dedicated themselves for over 30 years to their football faith. It’s something difficult to put into words. That’s why I prefer to photograph it. The preparation for the match, what they do the day before, the same day… I chase all of that.”

The important thing is being there

“Many times, when I go to shoot a new fan base, or take trips for personal projects, even just to watch a match, I try to talk with the ultras, to connect with the fans. The first few days I hardly shoot at all, because I haven’t yet created that kind of trust, of genuineness. Maybe I take two photos in a whole week, but those two photos are true, real – not staged, not set up.

This is my vision: meeting real people and telling their reality through codes, rituals, glances, emotions they share before and during a match. It’s difficult – in the first days of meeting people I don’t even say I’m a photographer. That comes later, with a simple, “Oh, you know, maybe I’ll take a photo of you too.” I try to work “undercover,” let’s say, and then, on matchday, capture what I seek on a cultural, emotional, passionate level… Even fear, why not? After all, anything can happen on matchday.

I’ve been to very unconventional stands – even extreme groups, politically charged ones. Yet the trust they gave me after a few days was such that I could photograph bosses with their faces covered, in their own homes, with grams of drugs in plain sight, and sit down to eat with them. I won’t deny I felt fear – that’s normal. But it’s also what draws me, what pushes me forward every day: knowing and not knowing what to expect, understanding and not understanding who’s on the other side, processing first impressions. What matters most to me is building a real, honest relationship: with the fan, with the team, with the players. Over the years I’ve taken punches, countless kicks to the ankles… and I’ll keep taking them. Paradoxically, I’m “happy,” because it means I’m doing what makes me feel alive: that thrill, those sensations that let me know I’m doing the right thing.

There are fans and stadiums that give me goosebumps just thinking about them. For example, the first time I saw West Ham – even though it was their first season in the new stadium – I was moved. Watching people go to the old pub before the game, or take the tube to the stadium, was extraordinary. The same happens at San Siro: I’ve seen Milan over 200 times, and every time – whether on the pitch or in the third tier – it’s always an incredible emotion. Smelling the grass, the flares, makes me live dreams that last 90 minutes. When I’m there for a specific job, I try to complete the project, of course. But if I get carried away by the match or the fans, I shoot less. Instead of 100 shots, I take 20 – but genuine ones, heartfelt, and therefore better.

A few Sundays ago, I went to the Serie D title final, and it was one of the best trips of the year. 1,900 km, 25 hours of travel, exhaustion… Yet when I look back at those photos, I still feel like I’m in that stadium a month later. I open the archive and see photos from five or more years ago, and I relive the same emotions, the adrenaline, the fear of a last-minute equalizer, of a penalty. The most important thing is to have been there. Many of the photos I’ve taken aren’t “technically correct,” but they try to transmit what it means to go to the stadium, at least from my perspective. I have one photo in particular that I consider beautiful: a 70-year-old woman at San Siro, praying the rosary before kickoff. The rosary was red and black. That, to me, is football – or rather, “the ball,” il pallone.”

Past, present, and future of the Beautiful Game

“For many years, football was more than a game: it was the heartbeat of an entire community. Even today, in some towns, it survives economic storms and contemporary logic. It’s true that modern football belongs more and more to those with money, but its real spirit is still alive: it breathes in villages where people wake up at dawn to farm the fields all week and then, on Sunday, gather around a single pitch to cheer.

Growing up near Syracuse, in Canicattini Bagni – a small town of just 7,000 souls – I watched my local team play in Eccellenza for years, with the stadium full every weekend. My grandfather, not even a sports fan, still went – not so much to watch the match itself, but to soak up that atmosphere of collective festivity. In places like ours, Sunday football was the only real break after days of hard work. It was a community festival, a gift that seems to be lost, in its communal essence, in today’s big cities.

Provincial clubs remind me of football’s purest values. Towns that never touched Serie A, yet live and breathe the game. That, for me, is the essence of football: uniting people, overcoming social and economic barriers. That old TIM commercial – ‘Football belongs to those who love it’ – is carved in my memory. I still believe those words, thanks to those who still organize five on five tournaments at the local pitch, who do it only out of passion.

Being Sicilian, half of my family has ties with Argentina. In my closet, I still keep a size S Boca Juniors shirt, brought to me by my cousins. It doesn’t fit me anymore, but the dream of photographing in that land remains. South America is football’s sacred cradle, where fans would endure hunger just to watch a match. I saw that same dedication in Turkey, especially after the earthquake disaster two years ago. Fans would cross the city on foot, raising funds – not to enrich themselves, but to strengthen their community. It was proof of the transcendent, unifying power of sporting passion.

For me, football will always be about community and belonging: about that wave of emotions no TV deal or corporate interest will ever erase. It is the rhythm of daily life: a shared ritual, destined to continue as long as there are those who truly love it.”