No football fan should ever leave home to attend a game & never make it back. Countless thousands have been killed on-route to or at games for a whole host of reasons; fan violence, traffic accidents, crushes, fires, sudden death, being just some of them.

Italians are known to be a very passionate race of people who wear their heart on their sleeve & they take their football very seriously. The tragic death of Gabriele Sandri was a watershed moment in Italian football in the midst of a very tense & long-standing issue between fan groups & the police.

The Death of Gabriele Sandri

To set the scene; Inter Milan were due to face SS Lazio in Serie A on November 11th 2007. Thousands of Lazio fans would have been travelling north from Rome up to Milan for the game along the E35 motorway. While as is the case with most weekends, fans were travelling to away games the length & breadth of Italy. A group of Lazio fans, including Gabriele Sandri, encountered a group of Juventus fans, who were travelling to a game versus Parma, at a rest stop off the motorway in the area of Arezzo. 

According to reports a scuffle broke out between the two sets of fans & the police were promptly called. As the violence began to escalate the police who were present, in an attempt to separate the fans, fired some live rounds in the air as a warning. Confusion & chaos ensued & in the chaos an officer accidentally fired off another live round, hitting Gabriele Sandri in the neck. This shot turned out to be fatal. Gabriele Sandri was killed.

A number of years later a policeman was eventually convicted of the manslaughter of Gabriele Sandri & was sentenced to six years in prison.

The Inter-Lazio game was of course cancelled once the news was confirmed, as was a scheduled game between Roma & Calgiari in Rome. As the news began to spread around Italy of Sandri’s death, mass protests & demonstrations followed. The Italian Football Federation delayed games by ten minutes as a mark of respect to Sandri, while the Serie A game between Atalanta & AC Milan was abandoned due to rioting sparked by Sandri’s killing.

Some fans took issue with the fact that most fixtures still went ahead after the news of Sandri broke. Earlier that year a policeman was killed prior to the Sicilian derby between Palermo FC & Calcio Catania & the entire matchday schedule was cancelled. Fans all across Italy felt this move by the Italian Football Federation was them placing a higher value on the lives of policemen over the lives of fans. This was the reason the game in Bergamo between Atalanta & Milan was abandoned, Atalanta felt that the game should not have been going ahead so they forcefully tried to get onto the pitch to have the game abandoned. They ultimately succeeded.

Fast-forward four months to March 2008 & there was a ‘Derby della Capitale’ to be played at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. This was the first Rome Derby since Sandri’s death & the events that transpired prior to kick-off can only be described as powerful & moving.

Francesco Totti & Curva Nord Lazio

Just before the players were due to come out to start the game, a group of people made their way along the touchline down towards Lazio’s Curva Nord, flanked by media & photographers. There were club delegates from both sides present but most importantly were the five key individuals who were leading the group; Roma’s captain Francesco Totti, Lazio’s captain Tommaso Rocchi, Gabriele Sandri’s brother Cristiano & a prominent leader from both Lazio & Roma’s ultras groups.

The coming together of these five individuals to lay a wreath & embrace a picture of Sandri was a showing of unity & solidarity between the two most fierce of rivals.

While similarly in the away end Roma fans unfurled a banner showing their solidarity with Sandri & Lazio, putting their eternal hatred to one side in a showing of sadness & respect; “In the Light Blue Sky A Star Shines. Ciao Gabriele”.

Hostilities were resumed once the referee’s whistle sounded & have continued on ever since, as you would expect from these eternal enemies. However it seems the actions by Francesco Totti prior to kick-off that day, as well as actually attending Sandri’s funeral seems to not have been forgotten by Lazio fans.

Prior to Totti’s last ever Derby della Capitale in 2017, to the surprise of many, Lazio’s Curva Nord left the Roma legend a tribute. The banner read; “Your Enemies For Life. We Salute You Francesco Totti” signed by Lazio ultras the ‘Irriducibili’.

For more about Lazio’s infamous, now disbanded ultras the Irriducibili, read here.

SS Lazio & AS Roma; eternal enemies always & forever.

Francesco Totti; Roma’s record appearance holder, record goalscorer & a club legend forever.

Francesco Totti; the Roma legend who earned the respect of the Lazio fans.

Some things are simply greater than football.