Words and Images Mike Carranza
Heart of this town, only great love. Yellow like the sun. Red like my heart.
Being pitchside for a Serie A match at the Stadio Olimpico felt surreal. I had spent the week working on pitches across Roma, moving from one field to another, yet seeing very little of the city itself. Rome, in many ways, had remained just out of reach.
The match between Roma and Napoli marked my third visit to the Stadio Olimpico in just five days. The first came as a tourist, led through the cavernous bowl by a guide, the stands empty as ground staff meticulously prepared the pitch. The second was a Europa League night against Midtjylland, where beers were shared and an espresso followed — as tradition demands.
It was then that I first heard it.
“Roma Roma Roma.”
The chant poured from the stands and reverberated through the concrete, echoing long after the final note. The words struck instantly: Heart of this town, only great love. Yellow like the sun. Red like my heart. It felt less like a song and more like a declaration.
My relationship with football has always been layered — built on love, pain, struggle, and fleeting moments of triumph. It is the longest relationship of my life, one that began when I was three years old. Football became a constant: a place of comfort through heartbreak and failure, success and sadness, joy and disappointment. Long after childhood dreams faded, football remained.
During my time in Rome, bad news arrived from home. The kind that settles quietly but heavily. Yet even then, I knew there was something I needed to fulfil — something owed to that three-year-old boy who dreamed only of football.
I arrived at the Stadio Olimpico for Napoli v Roma exhausted, overworked, and emotionally drained. But the moment I stepped onto the pitch, it returned.
“Roma, Roma, Roma — heart of this town, only great love.”
In that instant, the weight lifted. What remained was joy — pure, grounding, unmistakable. I felt at home. Not alone, but surrounded by something familiar and eternal. Football, in the Eternal City. My feet on the grass. Everything exactly where it was meant to be.
The day before my flight back to the United States, standing alone on my balcony, I realised something was ending — and something else was beginning. A closing chapter, followed by an uncertain next step. There was no time for fear or anxiety. No room for doubt.
The next day, I would be back on a football pitch. And there, as it has always been, everything would be okay.
Words and Images Mike Carranza
