Print

[Mr.Andersson]

Laziali svedesi invades Borås!

I remember it like it was today. Laziali called during the whole day and were dreaming about Lazio getting drawn against Elfsborg, a Swedish team located in the city Borås.
After the draw, we had all realized that the dream had come true!

As soon as the facts were on the table, I contacted Paolo asking if we could create something very special: A Lazioland-meeting in Sweden! Paolo made arrangements from Italia and with a comeback from Mad Dog and the help from a lot of people(Susanne, Engberg, Falkesäter, Korlevski, Raham, Cash) we reached our objective and beyond.
The meeting was massive, the biggest in LazioLand history(265 people), as LazioLand cooperated with the swedish website SvenskaFans Lazio.


Here is the story from me:

Well, where shall I start?
It has been two days of an emotional rollercoaster with a blindfould. But hey, as a laziale I was well prepared!
Ever since the plane with the team in my heart landed, I have felt like a child again. It has been an amazing experience and all of our tough work when organising The Laziomeeting in Sweden has payed off.
Not in form of cash payment, but in the happy faces of all the swedish laziali I've met and talked to.
And of course, meeting and talking to almost the whole Lazio squad was something amazing, something undefiable...
"Great", "amazing", "fantastic" and "incredible" are only words and they are not strong enough to discribe the feeling it was to talk to Mr. Ballardini about what he thought about Sweden, us fans, the team and his Swedish wife(yeah, we got in to personal stuff aswell!).   


To put the whole experience in some kind of chronological order we start whit the arrival to my home of Daniel Korlevski, a good friend of mine how always joins the derbies in Roma. When standing next to eachother in Olimpico, Lazio has never lost a game. He arrived to at tuesday night and we started the "Laziodays" with some nice talk and some drinks.
We talked about our expectations and dreams of Lazio and of the week, but I don't think that anything could prepare us for the day to come...


Wednesday:

Me and Daniel got up pretty early to pick up a beautiful banner with the text "Benvenuti SS Lazio"(thanks Pontus for the design), signed by SvenskaFans and LazioFever.


Now we were ready to go to the airport!
I had informed some great laziali friends about the teams arrival at Landvetter(grazie Paolo for the info) and we stod there and just waited for the team to walk out the door. The banner was up and the tension was high. Paolo called and had me ready on the phone to talk to a radioshow whenever the Lazioteam walked out the gate! Everything was set, but no Lazio team ever went trough the gates becouse they got picked up out by the plan! The dissepointment among the swedish laziali was great, but some of us refused to give up! 
I called Paolo and asked him what to do and he told me to go to the hotel where I was suppose to deliver a translation of a swedish newsartical to Mr. De Martino, pressmanager of SS Lazio.
After grabbing something fast to eat(Daniel was amazed of how much food I could eat) we yet again sat down in the car and drove for another half an hour to Borås.
At First Hotel Grand I went to the reception and said that I had an appoinment with Mr. De Martino and Mr.Manzini, teammanager.
I waited for while before I met up with Mr. De Martino and we talked for a while about la Lazio and the articel I had helped him with. He was a true gentleman and behave with LazioStyle all the time.

After that, Mr. Manzini came down to us(me, Daniel, Pontus and Arton) and I welcomed him to Sweden by the behalf of SvenskaFans Lazio and LazioFever and offered our help to the team. It was of course a great hounor for me and a unique oppurtunity that many laziali never get to experience. Mr. Manzini was a serious and understanding man and he said that our organisation is unique and impressive.
I exchanged some information about the team's training and access to that and I informed him about how many we were gathered here in Sweden.
They explained to me that us four would be granted access to the hotel and talk, take photos and spend time with the players and of course, we got thrilled!
I truly felt blessed as I saw how people were waiting outside the hotel, while we had this fantastic oppurtunity to be around the players.
The first one we connected with was Kolarov. He was a man with humor we noticed as he made a joke when he saw us later, after our "photosession" with him.
He said:"What are you still doing here, you have already taken a photo whit me, isn't that enough?". Thanks to Daniel, how was able to talk with him in his own language aswell, I got the expression that he felt rather natural around us.

Then the coolest and nicest man in the squad came down to us, Mr. Ballardini.
His sunglasses was on, what else?
He was very polite and asked us as many questions as we asked him and we stood there talking to him for maybe 8 minutes, but it felt like 5 seconds. For me, this was the best moment during the day.
Mr. Ballardini showed the greatest respect for us and our organisation and he talked a lot about how much he liked Sweden(his wife is from Stockholm, so he problably didn't dare anything else).
We talk a bit about the team and his thoughts around that.


After that, they all came down to us.
Foggia, Lichtsteiner, Matuzalem, Cruz, Bizarri, Meghni, Tare, Siviglia, Rocchi and so on.
We got this unique oppurtunity to talk and welcome them all. Maybe the two friendlies players were Dabo and Muslera.

One of the most friendlies players was Qusmane Dabo. He stood and talked for a while and he said that he was impressed by how many and crazy laziali we had here in Sweden.
He asked how many we were going to be at the game tomorrow and I gave him a lot of credit for the penalty in Coppa Italia.
As we stood there talking, I didn't notice as Zaraté went by becouse Dabo was so friendly and "chatty".
Look at Korlevski's face as he discover Zaraté just walking by us!


Muslera, the teenage boy who became a man and the man that developed into one of the best goalkeepers in Serie A, stoped by with his never ending smile(If anyone has seen his girlfriend you know why...).
Dabo seemed to have a lot of fun so he decided to hang out with us for another fotosession. A truly fantastic person!
Muslera was smiling and laughing all the time and was impressed over our organisation here in Sweden. MUSLERA SHA-LA-LA-LA!


Then we headed for the training with the team(sorry but Arton has all the pics from the training) and it was great. The most fun part was that I meet two italian laziali that I and Pontus was in the same supporterbus as when we watched an awaygame against Bologna last year during the period we lived in Rome. It is always fun to meet old friends!
After this, we headed home. In the car it all came clear to me. I sorted out all my experiences during the day and tried to remember everything I said to the players and staff.

Personally, I have to say that the most amazing thing about the day was the fact that we could walk around and talk to the players, not just take a photo and say "Ciao e grazie". It was a incredible feeling to shake thier hands, introduce myself, look them in the eyes and welcome them to Sweden on the behalf of SvenskaFans and LazioFever.
As I look back upon this day, I realize how fortunate I am to have experince this day and it has left a big, lightblue mark in my heart!

People that know me well often call me crazy and that my relation to Lazio is so strong that it is unhealthy. I don't believe in such nonsens.
La Lazio is more then a team. It is more then just a club. To be a laziale is something special, something that cannot be described.
It is a way of living.
It is a way of feeling.
It is a state of mind.


Perche la Lazio é una fede...


/Robin Andersson

Tomorrow I will return with part two.

First, here are some picks from the training.




Thursday:

First of all, I have to give credit to Korlevski. We were out in Gothenburg and hitting the clubs during the night with Arton and his little brother and Korlevski showed some very impressive skills as he made his moves on the drunk Swedish girls. I picked up a tip or two there, but the problem is if I use them, my girlfriend since 3 1/2 years might not be so intrested in me anymore...
Korlevski on the other hand would have made Sven-Goran Eriksson proud...(Korlevski, you should be very happy over the comperiasion)

Ok, let's get to work on the report again.
We were home from the clubs at 4:00 and got up at 10:00 the morning after. The hard life of a laziale, my friends.
Korlevski was tired, but alive. Me on the other hand was filled with powers and as my girlfriend served us breakfast, I started to think about the game and the hard work we had in front of us.
And once again, I crushed Korlevski in eating. We got going about 11:45 as we went to get some heliumtubes for filling up the baloons that I picked up the day before.
The place was rather hard to find unfortunatly and once we got there, everything was not fixed for us and we had to wait for a while as the checked up what we wanted and where we where from.
It was all a mess and I got frustrated becouse we were suppose to meet Lazio at the hotel for some ticket issues at 13:00.
At 13:00 we both were stressed as smelling as but we had the tubes in the car and I called Paolo to say goodbye, becouse if we would be in a crash, they would not find anything at all left of us.

I informed that we were running late but on our way.
-have fun, I hate to be late, I said to Korlevski.
-Yes, me too, he answered.
-You only concentrate on driving Korlevski, becouse I will kill you if we crash!
It is hard not to see the irony in that considering the tubes in the car...

Korlevski once again showed some great skills as the drove in about 160 km/h alll the way to and we sorted out the tickets with a representive from la Lazio(Grazie Paolo and la Lazio, you made some fans very happy). 25 minutes from Gothenburg to Borås is a hard beaten achivement.
Korlevski, who didn't eat much at breakfast becouse of the tequila the night before(Skenderbeu, you remember Korlevskis strong tequila drinking, don't you?) so we stoped by McDonalds after buying some tape for the banners, flags and baloons.
At 14:00 we were at the stadium where we meet Engberg and Falkesäter with company who helped us getting started with the baloons and tifo.
After a while, Arton and Pontus showed up to help as well. I have to say a big thanks to these persons, becouse if it wasn't for them, we never would have been ready in time.
It ment a lot to me that you all were willing to sacrifise some beer at the pub just to help us out so we could enjoy the game too.
We filled up about 500 baloons and made them stick to the chairs thanks to my brilliant idea to use dubblesticking tape on the chairs(yeah, now I am just showing off).


We were finished about 17:00 and Pontus, Engberg and the others got going to the pub to meet up with the others.
Unfortunatly for me, the bus from Stockholm was running a bit too late so I had to stay in the stadium with Korlevski and later also Johan.
The helium tubes was still at the stadium and could not be left alone and Susanne and Daniel needed them to fill some big baloons to lift thier wonderful eagle that they had work hard to prepare.
It was sad to see that it never got airborn thanks to bad baloons...

When they arrived, Korlevski, who was as me very stressed over some none working things, had to run around in the arena to find someone how could open the gates for Susanne and Daniel(great to see you both again). And my phone started ringing like crazy as people at the pub were wondering were I was and the tickets.
It was a stressfilled moment but it all worked out well.


As the gate opened up for our friends, Daniel and Susanne got working immiediatly and I got to met Johan for the first time in person.
Me and Johan have problably spents several days talking(not joking) on the phone and MSN about Lazio and life in general(and the fact that Gothenburg is a way much nicer city then Stockholm), so it was like meeting a friend that I've known my whole life and we had a lot of fun, even though I wasn't in the best shape after a stressfull day with a lot of hard work and running.
But hey, everything for la Lazio!
Now I know some of what Paolo has to go trough EVERYTIME when organizing the derby meetings and other meetings!


It was wonderful to see all the friendly laziali faces again as they were flying in trough the gates. People really showed how happy they were for this oppurtunity and it was worth more then 50.000euro(heeelllll nooooo! Maybe 5000...) for me. We got in to the stands as the game kicked off and we were signing with the 70 laziali from Rome. We did a great job I think and the laziali from Rome was very happy with our work, organisation and singing!
We behaved with great LazioStyle and really showed that we knew how to be a real Curva!


The game on the other hand wasn't the best. Lazio was not very intrested in playing at all and were happy with the result. We got trough to the next round and that was the most important thing.

I am tired now so I will try to round this story up.
Beside the obvious that it was some amazing, lightblue days, I have to say thank you to a lot of people.

Korlevski, Pontus and Arton were my wingmen during the whole time and was at great help. People said "thank you Robin for making this happen and for your work at SvenskaFans" and I felt very ashamed.
Of course I am very glad that you enjoyed the meeting, but it wouldn't be possible without guys like Arton, Pontus and Korlevski.
Thanks also to "Mad dog" for a great job with the tickets.
Thank you Engberg with his father and friends for helping us with the hard work with filling the great amount of baloons at the stadium.
Thank you "Cash" for an incredible work with the bus. Raham also deservs to be mentioned.
Thank you Susanne for giving me information from the "leaders" in Stockholm and for the beautiful eagle you made.
Thank you Paolo for giving me the oppurtunity to met the squad and thank you for your advices. As more experienced from these kind of events, your knowledge was of highest importance.
And last, but absolutly not at least, thanks to all of you how attended and for your behaviour, happy faces and lazialitá!
We showed the world what great supporters we are!

[Mr.Andersson]

Apperently laziali at the game, ounumbered by elfsborgare 8 to 1, made some noice...:

Big props for all the swedish/danish/italian/whichever laziali attending the game, all I could hear all through the game was LAZIO LAZIO LAZIO!!!

The arrangement was noticied even in Italy:

Corriere dello sport today Magazine
Pag 7\\
Lazio a warm welcome in Sverige.
Boras: A huge Banner with Benvenuti SS Lazio, baloons, flags, scarf. with the 70 from Sodalizo a huge representative of Laziali svedesi in Boras Arena  creates a colorful scenario.
Thanks to laziofever this fans line continue from China to Sweden and demonstrate how Lazio has fans all over.

Arton was one of the guys that were able to hang out with the squad in the lobby:

2 fantastic days are over. Maybe the best days of my life. thanks to all laziale and special thanks to Mr Anderson, Daniel and Pontus.

We did some story of are lifetime. We meet all the players, we meet all Laziale both from sweden, Danmark, norge and of course the Laziale from Italiy.

I got the aporunity to talk with all the players and  chat for a long time with Mr Tare, a wonderful person he was. we talkt about everything like 2 old friends do.

It was a dream that came thrue for me. I will never forget this 2 days.

SS Lazio is my passion in life. My truly Love.

This 2 days may be over for now but i still have 60 year do give to Lazio and tha happines Lazio will giv me.

Grazie Lazio :)

Ciao Arton A

I'm still under the inpression of seeing la Lazio for the very first time live, so unreal to see all those players you see on the bad streaming and TV, to see them two meters in front of you, I was like a child in the wonderland for the whole game. I came to Borås at 16.40 and was really happy to see so much laziali in the town. Elfsborg fans sere not present. :tongue: . Went to Harrys and saw it was full of people. My crew and I decidet to head to the stadium right away, we wanted to see preperations of players and so on. My brother is a juventino but that night he had a Lazio shirt and he screamed and cheered for Lazio like a mad man. As I said to Suzy weeks before, my mission was to convert him into a laziale and my mission was complited (atleast for that night  :tongue: )

The game it self was entertaining, we had seats right behind the goal, so we tried our best to scream and yell at Ante Covic (GK of Elfs) and Deni Avdic (that little bastard that scored the goal), since they understand our language.

Anyway here is some pictures:

Muslera sha la la la la......what to say, we have a new Peruzzi



Laziali at action


Right after Kolarov was sent off, my buddy took this picture while I was mad at Anders Svensson for the little fight he wanted to create, I was so close to throw a bottle at them but I couldn't find one and at the same time realized that this is not lazio style. That piece of smelling ass will watch us on telly every other Thursday on Europa League


To say at the end, it was a great day but I was little dissapointed at Lazio players who didnät bothered to thank us, the fans, after the match. Only Rocchi, Baronio, Eliseu, Muslera and Foggia I belive, came to us and thanked us. The other primadonas went right away to changing room. Not cool at all, tell them Erme the next time you meet them.

FORZA LAZIO!

Been working the whole time untill now since Borås so i didn´t have the time to write here and thank everybody for the great experience in Borås. But here it comes :)

Thank you Robin for letting me stay at you´re place, also say thank you to you´re great girlfriend! And thank you for the company aswell,,it was very fun from the beginning to the end ;)
And thank you for always making a fool of me :D haha!

Thank you Pontus and Arton aswell for the company. Pontus i´ve met before so i already know he´s great. but Arton was a pleasent surprise :) Great pics thanks to you´re camera :)

Also fun to meet Gustav, Johan W, Johan F, Susanne, Daniel and the rest of the lazialis that i don´t see every day :)

Thank you also to every Laziofan who attended at the game and created a great atmospheare,,it was great to hear you!

At last. Thank you Paolo for giving us the opportunity to meet the players. It was one of the best days of my life and i will never forget it. Grazie!

Robin has posted the pics already,,but i have some from my own mobile that i like to share as soon as i learn how to do it? :)

Forza Lazio!

Finally got the chance to check this all out.

Swedish Laziali, I am damn proud of you!!!!

This is my story: When I heard that my fantastic Lazio is coming too Sweden did I start signing and screaming all day beacuse I was going to see my team agian. And people around me know's that I love Lazio like I love my mother so my bro wanted too come and my girlfriend.
 When Lazio squad landed in Svezia was my spirit near Mr Andersson and the other guys all the time. I couldn't go there and that made me really really sad. Who don't want to talk too see Fernando Muslera? Il Capitano Tommaso Rocchi? Maurito? and so on..That just made me insane, but I catch them next time...

Next day my girlfriend picked me and my brother up from our house (I don't have a car license mohah) and we travelled nearly 2 h.
When we finaly come to Borås we started too find the pub were all laziali was and it didn't take long time before we finded them.
My brother was to little for the pub and my girlfriend stayd outside whit hime but I was running in there so fast like the cops were after me beacuse I wanted to find everybody who I have seen earlier in Rome. Some of them were there, some were in the stadium and so on. I was really lucky that moment i saw some other laziali wich i knew, it was great. Everybody was happy but nervous too beacuse they wanted the tickets in their pockets.

In the stadium it was perfect. I mean the atmosphere was great and of course not like in Rome but..everybody did a good job, and we hade only 3 big flags. I hade one of them. The lazialita feelings I had in my two other games whit Lazio (in rome) wasn't the same on this one for sure, but I had a fun time. On the pitch did Muslera some fantastic saves, Cruz was lazy and Meghni was crazy. The New Zidane playd really good in that game.

Thanks too everyone who made that eavning special for me and the other laziali, you guys did a great job.
And the last thing i want to say is that my girlfriend become laziale that night hehe. That's a victory for me.

WHAT A JOURNEY FROM THAT DAY I WATCHED EUROSPORT DRAW ELFSBORG AGAINST LAZIO!


My fever started to rise and the telephone started to get warm..
Mad Dog called, I called Nesta Jr, Cash called, Robin called, I called Daniel and we started to discuss how to move this forward ....

People went crazy and wanted to buy tickets right away, Mamma Mia! I had no idea that we were that many laziale in Sweden, impressive!

We met a sunday over a beer and discussed how to share the work load and to create some choregraphy for the game, we had some great ideas!

- 500 helium balloons white/blue to fly up in the air
- Build the eagle that should hang 30 meters up in the air carried by bigger helium balloons and below a banderoll with Gabriele printed on it

A bus was rented after a lot of bidding (thanks to Cash for the hard work) to take all 50 laziales from Stockholm to Borås, Alessandro Tonno was invited from Rome to join us in the curva.

Mad Dog, Daniel and I spent 7 days on that Eagle and making the banderoll, my apartment looked like a workshop. Patience started to faint, and disarguments occurred :-)  I now realise how much work the supporters are spending for preparing choregraphy in the derby's!!!!!

OFF WE GO!
The great day arrived, the bus was departing 11:30 from stockholm almost on time after having the 300 tickets delivered with a taxi in the last minute!

Lazio chants were distributed to everyone on the bus, Ishizaki pezzo di Merda was the favorite!
All windows were covered with a lazio scarfes or a flag, and when we arrived in Borås it was obvious that Laziales were in town!

Now we didn't have much time to prepare, only 1,5 hrs left! Mad Dog went to the Harrys Pub where all 300 laziales from rest of Sweden were waiting for tickets, and Daniel and I met up with Robin and Lewkovski for preparing the helium balloons and putting all of the pieces of the eagle and banderoll in the arena.

Bad news... The helium tubes were thrown out at 6 from the arena due to security risks, time was running out so we had to change our plans!!!!! The eagle was hung up at the fence just before kick-off, and the banderoll was hold up over our head in the beginning of the game!

KICK-OFF
All through the game Lazio supporters were singing and chanting, with a great help from Alessandro Tonno! My best memory is the corner placed by Ishizaki, the curva did hit his concentration scanding Ishizaki Pezzo Di Merda, Great Job!

RETURN
All stuff packed into the bus, Driver was complaining that we were going to return too late,   Mad Dog was gone (seeing the players lucky bastard) and we were left with the helium tubes that should go back to Göteborg. After a lot of chasing we managed to solve this thanks to Classo offering his services!

Back in Stockholm 5:30 in the morning, returning home to my ”workshop” with pieces of the eagle and the Gabriele banderoll,
”Not only placed in my heart now also placed in my apartment!”








FORZA LAZIO!

//Suzy

Was a pleasure to again experiance huge Lazialta, i met my team, old Lazio brothers and sisters and some new one i was sick during this days with fever and such but still i managed to come and i loved every second! im already looking forward for my rome trip in december so i can spend some more time getting to know new Lazio peeps!

keep it real!! Forza Lazio

Some videos from the meeting:

ELFSBORG-LAZIO

Elfsborg IF - SS Lazio 27/8

http://www.youtube.com/user/BzarArdalani#p/u/10/tnfMKOWqnvI

http://www.youtube.com/user/BzarArdalani#p/u/2/bTHe9HlxqtY

http://www.youtube.com/user/BzarArdalani#p/u/3/n-uv5IfOQkM


The match:

Elfsborg Lazio 1 0 Fotboll SVT Play

The Lazioland team wants to thank all those how participated during this unique meeting and did it with LazioStyle. It was all a huge success and we believe that it brought all our members closer to Lazio. The meeting also became a true statement of what Lazioland is all about and the unique support we bring!

LAZIOLAND WILL FOLLOW LAZIO ALL OVER THE WORLD


A topic from Mr. Andersson, Lazioland team!

[Bizzy]

Elfsborg away (S.S.Lazio)