COMO, Italy — It is an ordinary night on Lake Como. The last rays of sunlight sieve patches of clouds, spot the hills trailing into Switzerland. Seaplanes fly overhead and flutter like autumn leaves before a gentle landing on the water. The sunset is a mix of sherbert hues that melt into the lake—it is the kind of sunset you get engaged to, and with the thousands of tourists who walk the shores, there’s a good chance someone somewhere proposed. 

For Como, an extraordinary night like this is actually quite ordinary. But there is no denying that it was a special night because, next to the seaplane hangar and on the ebbing shore, there was European soccer on Lake Como. It’s safe to say the Champions League has never known such natural beauty.

If we want to talk extraordinary, try this: Eight years ago at this time, Como’s small-time soccer club, Como 1907, was rotting away in Serie D, the amateur fourth flight of Italian soccer. In 2019, Indonesian billionaires bought the club hoping to turn the club’s exploits into a reality TV show. Within six years, the club made their way back to Serie A after a 21-year wait. And in just their second year in Serie A, Como 1907 finished fourth to qualify for Champions League. It all seems too good to be true—but such is life on Lake Como. 

Yet despite all of the beauty, Como 1907 made it clear that they are not here for a pageant—nor are they your typical debutants. Winning your Champions League debut is one thing, dropping four goals on two-time German Cup champions RB Leipzig is a statement.

“It was an historic night for the club, for all of the fans,” Como 1907 manager Cesc Fàbregas said. “In 10, 20 years, people will ask, ‘Where were you when we won that first [Champions League] match?’ This is the beauty of soccer.”

There was not a single Italian in the Como starting XI, but there were more than 10,000 in the stands—making it one of the smallest capacity crowds in Champions League history. Yet it did not sound like only 10,000 when the club scored its first-ever Champions League goal in the 15th minute courtesy of Martin Baturina, who followed up his first World Cup goal this summer for Croatia by becoming a Como history trivia answer. 

And it certainly didn't sound like only 10,000 when Como ultras serenaded the players at the final whistle while shaking their brand new supporters' stand. It’s in that newly laid cement where the most extraordinary feat lies. 

Como’s rapid rise into Champions League left them with a champagne problem: It had arrived at the pinnacle of club soccer almost too early, with the Giuseppe Sinigaglia Stadium not up to Champions League standards. Between the end of the Serie A season in May and the start of Champions League in September, the club needed to add more security and safety features, more media facilities, a wider pitch and—the kicker—to demolish the entire supporters’ stand since it was a metal tubular grandstand (the kind you see use as high school football bleachers) and erect a permanent, concrete tribune. 

Accomplishing all of that in less than four months anywhere in the world would be a challenge; doing it in Italy—a country infamous for its suffocating bureaucracy, a country that takes 2–3 business months of summer vacation—is a miracle. Someone call Pope Leo XIV and get this project manager canonized.  

Como finished the project with a week to spare, so rather than playing their Champions League debut in Sassuolo’s Mapei Stadium—a two-hour drive from Como—fans of the biancoblu went on afternoon swims, enjoyed a lakeside Aperol spritz and fished at the stadium before kickoff.

On the pitch, things continue to go swimmingly for Como—and it’s all thanks to a Spanish coach reinventing the possibilities of Italian soccer. Having made 104 Champions League appearances as a player for Arsenal, Barcelona and Chelsea, Fàbregas is no stranger to European nights. But a 4–1 win in his managerial debut will take him from the trendiest coach in soccer to one of the most coveted. 

Fàbregas has brought European soccer’s biggest stage to Europe’s hottest destination by taking a jackhammer to Italy’s antiquated soccer traditions, dumping hard-nosed defensive tactics for a full-out attack, slick passing and a will to entertain. His Como journey began as a player in Serie B when he was also offered ownership shares in the club; he now owns the city thanks to his unbounded passion and relentless work ethic that has captivated and entertained fans of all ages.

The truth is that Como fully expect to entertain—or fail trying. Como team president Mirwan Surwaso has doubled down on modeling the club on the Disney blueprint: merchandising, mass tourism, international branding and social media marketing. They are considering a move to drop Adidas after this season to start making their jerseys in house. They already source their own beer and sell it throughout the stadium at a bargain rate. And in the coming years they plan to rebuild the stadium with the focus on making it a community hub with doctors offices, recreation facilities and year-round hospitality options. A soccer Disneyland on Lake Como is Surwaso’s plan, but it was his latest gesture that spoke loudest of all. 

With a demand for tickets at an all-time high for a limited capacity stadium, Suwarso announced that he and several members of Como’s leadership would give up their seats in the directors’ box, where A-list celebrities often sit, for the club’s most seasoned supporters. 

“We want those seats to be allocated to supporters who have waited the longest—fans born in 1950 or earlier, who have followed Como through every division and every era,” Suwarso said in a statement. “We will be honored to give up our seat for them.”

One of those fans was 90-year-old Mario Pozzetti, who walked into the main stand with a cane and a club official accompanying him. It has been so long that Pozzetti does not remember the year he first became a Como season-ticket holder. “More than 40 years, but less than 50,” he says. As Pozzetti looked up into the stadium lights while the Champions League anthem played, he beamed. 

“What an enormous joy,” Pozzetti says. “Five years ago we were in Serie C. To arrive in Champions League … I never could’ve imagined it.”

But then he drops a somber note. He hasn’t been to a match in some time, and he almost didn’t come to tonight’s match because he was afraid to leave his wife, who is paralyzed and on bed rest. Pozzetti says he had to “call the whole world” to get someone to watch her on matchday.

“I think this is the last time I’ll come to this stadium,” he says. “No doubt.”

If it is the last time, it truly was special. But what about when Manchester United docks on Lake Como’s shores next month?

“Hmm, Manchester United?” he asks with a smile. “We’ll see.”

Welcome to Lake Como, where the ordinary is often oh-so-far from ordinary.