Cinderella and the Fallen Giant: Como 1907 v Manchester United – football at opposite ends of the spectrum

Father Ben, the new vicar of the Anglican church of St Luke’s, in the Kensington neighbourhood of London. He was born in Manchester, on the United side, and is a football fan, like any good Englishman. There are no services scheduled for Wednesday and he’d love to be at Lake Como: ‘When the draw was announced last summer, my friends and I were thrilled, because it was the most beautiful destination for an international trip.’

He, however, having only just been posted by the Church of England to the capital after years in Brazil, will have to make do with supporting Manchester United in a London pub, but some lucky fellow Londoners have caught a flight and landed in Milan, bound for Como: 600 English fans are expected. Thousands would have come, but the capacity of the compact stadium, with its limited 12,000 seats (which were, incidentally, increased through a rush of building work over the summer specifically to host cup matches), limits the away section to fewer than a thousand (5 per cent of the seats, according to UEFA regulations).

Tonight, at 6.45 pm – an unusual kick-off time for Champions League matches, which in Italia usually start at 9 pm, but one that suits the British visitors – newcomers Como 1907 will face the giants Manchester United, a club steeped in history and glory. Making their debut in the most coveted competition for European football clubs, the team owned by Indonesian businessman Mirwan Suwarso, the architect of the sporting miracle on the lake – from Serie C to the UCL – is set to be crowned in the pantheon of football: it is hosting the gods of the game. Last month, they made their debut in the competition, also at home, against Leipzig. And whilst the city had already been swept up in football fever and a mini-economic boom following their very first cup match – with every venue in the city packed to the rafters – today will be a day of jubilation, as Como is inundated by a flood of Red Devils, the supporters of the English club, people accustomed to players of the calibre of Sir Bobby Charlton, Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham and George Best.

The match between Como 1907 and United, at the small but picturesque ground on the shores of Lake Como, pits a Cinderella story – with serious princess-like aspirations (embodied not least by the shirt sponsor, the equally underdog bank Revolut), and a fallen noble: the Italian club has a turnover of 55 million euros (and participation in the Cup brings in valuable additional revenue from TV rights and UEFA prize money). For Suwarso, it is already an economic miracle within the footballing miracle: as recently as last year, his club’s revenue was below 10 million. The 2025 financial year saw the club’s highest turnover in its century-long history, but this is a mere pittance compared to the English side’s 650 million pounds (around 800 million euros). The Manchester club’s turnover, moreover, is one of the highest in the world of football, driven mainly by the massive commercial revenues from Old Trafford, one of the world’s footballing temples, by world-class sponsors and the television rights of the Premier League. Como earns a figure close to 40 million euros from its Serie A share. The Red Devils, by contrast, earn over 170–190 million pounds annually from league TV broadcasts alone. These colossal revenues, however, are not always a guarantee of success: United have endured lean years, without any significant victories. Apart from an FA Cup – the equivalent of the Coppa Italia – the Reds haven’t won a league title for 13 years; the last time, Sir Alex Ferguson was still in charge; and they have not won an international trophy for ten years, under José Mourinho, and that was a Europa League title. For the ‘Big-Eared Cup’, one has to go back almost 20 years, to 2008. For such a prestigious club, this trophy drought is so long that people are talking of a decline.

The match between the two clubs is also one that Andrea Agnelli would never have wanted to see: when he was president of Juventus, he fought to push through the Super League project – a Champions League comprising only the big clubs – precisely to avoid these mismatched clashes between giants and minnows. Purists, however, argue that this is also the beauty of football: the unlikely clash between a newcomer and a heavyweight. How will it all end?