Azzurri held to a draw at Bergamo’s Gewiss Stadium

Match closed to public - but health workers among invited guests

Roma's Lorenzo Pellegrini scored
Italy's goal in the fixture

The match between the Italy national football team and the Netherlands at the Gewiss Stadium in Bergamo on Wednesday ended in a 1-1 draw after an early goal by Roma’s Lorenzo Pellegrini was cancelled out by an equaliser from Manchester United midfielder Donny van de Beek.

Both goals came in the first half of a match for which there were no paying spectators because of the coronavirus crisis but which hundreds of health workers from the Bergamo province attended as the invited guests of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), along with the mayors of the 243 Orobic municipalities.

Before the game, a delegation from the federations of both countries laid wreaths at a cemetery in the city in tribute to the victims.

One of the stands of the stadium was covered in a huge Italy flag and, after the national anthems were played before kickoff, the players and coaching staffs of both teams turned to the main stand and applauded the health workers and mayors, who were occupying seats in a carefully-organised grid that ensured social distancing rules were observed.

The match, in the UEFA Nations League, was moved to the Bergamo venue to honour the city after it suffered the loss of thousands of citizens to Covid-19 earlier in the year, having been scheduled to be played in Milan.

Bergamo's mayor Giorgio Gori

The match was only the third senior men’s international fixture to be staged in Bergamo and the first since November 2006.  Bergamo's mayor, Giorgio Gori, described the match as a signal of the rebirth of the city.

The Gewiss Stadium has undergone improvements to meet with standards required by the Champions League, in which the Bergamo team Atalanta are playing for the second time this season.  They are part of a wider upgrade of the stadium, which was known as the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d'Italia before the sponsorship deal with the electrical components company Gewiss saw it renamed.

The stadium is in the Borgo Santa Caterina district of Bergamo's Città Bassa, in Viale Giulio Cesare.

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