Como’s first-ever Champions League night will already carry enormous meaning for the club and its supporters. For a select group of lifelong fans, however, the occasion is about to become even more special.
Club president Mirwan Suwarso and several Como directors have decided to give up their own seats for Thursday’s historic Champions League opener against RB Leipzig at the Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia. Instead of occupying their places in the stands, the club officials want them to go to some of Como’s oldest and most loyal supporters.
The initiative comes amid exceptional demand for tickets. The Sinigaglia is sold out for the match and will operate with a reduced capacity for European fixtures following work carried out during the summer to meet UEFA requirements. Como themselves had previously warned that the reduced capacity could make Champions League availability more limited than for domestic matches.
Rather than keeping the directors’ allocation for one of the biggest evenings in the club’s history, Suwarso believes those places should belong to supporters who have spent decades waiting for a night like this.
There is a very deliberate idea behind the gesture. Como are looking specifically for supporters born in 1950 or earlier; fans old enough to have followed the club through dramatically different chapters of its history.
“We want them to be allocated to the fans who have waited the longest,” Suwarso explained in a message shared ahead of the game, referring to supporters who have followed Como “through every division and every era.” The club invited people who know eligible lifelong fans to contact Como so they could be considered for the available seats.
For those supporters, the journey has certainly not been straightforward. Como suffered bankruptcy following relegation from Serie B and eventually had to restart in Serie D for the 2017/18 season after failing to gain admission to the professional championship. SENT Entertainment acquired the club in April 2019, after which Como climbed rapidly through the Italian football pyramid, reaching Serie B before securing their long-awaited return to Serie A in 2024.
Many of the fans Suwarso is trying to bring into the stadium were therefore following Como long before Champions League football seemed remotely realistic. Some will have witnessed the club across several generations, promotions, relegations, financial problems and fresh starts.
Como are one of the Champions League debutants in the 2026/27 league phase and the 12th Italian club to appear in the competition. Leipzig will visit the Sinigaglia on September 10 at 21:00, beginning a home programme that will later bring teams like Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain to Lake Como.
That makes Suwarso’s decision particularly fitting. The players who walk onto the pitch against Leipzig represent the remarkable modern rise of Como, but the club’s story did not begin with it’s recent success.
It also belongs to those who continued turning up when European football was an impossible dream.
For some supporters born in 1950 or earlier, Thursday will therefore be much more than another match. After decades spent watching Como across Italian football’s divisions, they will finally see their club walk onto the Champions League stage; from seats surrendered by the people currently running it.
