Munich and Dortmund, the capitals of Euro2024

DORTMUND - One will be looking at the pitch, of course, but also very much at everything around it. In a geopolitical scenario in turmoil to say the least, Germany, also shaken by last weekend's vote, is asking the European championships for signs of détente, and for its multi-ethnic national team to reunite what the ballot boxes seem to have divided.

Maximum attention to safety, but also to valorise the legacy of the 2006 World Cup (hosted by nine of the ten facilities now reused), to contain costs and environmental impact (with discounts and free public transport for fans holding tickets for the various matches), to score some positive GDP decimals through football tourism. Surely it will be Uefa that will cash in, with investments of EUR 1.2 billion and operating margin estimated at least double.

Accounts that (obviously) seem to be of little interest to the proud Scottish fans, who are currently descending from Glasgow and Edinburgh towards Bavaria and colouring Germany with their national team shirts, kilts and bagpipes from here, from the Rhineland, perhaps landing in Düsseldorf - where we met them - to then descend by train to Munich and invade Marienplatz. Between Iserlhon, site of the Azzurri's training camp, and Dortmund, however, the European fever has yet to rise, but in the meantime, greeting us on an almost autumnal evening after a frugal beer in a bar in the city centre is a group of Albanian emigrants who promise battle with mugs and balls! More than 50,000 are expected in the stands of Signal Iduna Park, the legendary Westfalen Stadion, they who have been arriving here since the 1960s and 1970s, up to the waves of immigration following the collapse of the Berlin Wall;

Munich and Dortmund, the two poles of our European Championship just dawning and already at its zenith. At the Allianz Arena, where we eliminated Belgium to launch us towards the 2021 triumph, host Germany opens with Scotland the tournament that wants to be a celebration of football, despite the dark international geopolitical scenarios. In Dortmund, where we beat the Germans in 2006 in an epic World Cup semifinal, we will play twenty-four hours later against the Albanian eagles, already knowing the result of Spain-Croatia. Spalletti dreams of an Italy that is both bold and solid at the same time; the spotlight will be on the Atalanta bomber Scamacca, launched by the great end of the season in the Nerazzurri and awaiting a test of maturity, he who has only just begun to tread such stages. But Azzurra must grow quickly, as it has already been forced to do after the traumatic farewell of Roberto Mancini, and never as this time the performance will perhaps count more than the result itself, because if we find certainties in the game we will somehow know how to put them on the field even against Spaniards and Croatians. Otherwise it will only be regrets and nostalgia for those magical nights three years ago in Rome, Munich and London. But this Italy deserves to have its own present, its own future, to start building on the night in Dortmund.