Italy Matches — Tickets & Packages

A ticket for an Italy national team match is personalized, and at the gate they check ID against the name on it. This isn't a federation policy but Italian law: already at purchase, ID must be provided for every individual ticket holder, and at the entrance the steward verifies that the name on the ticket matches the person standing there — and refuses entry both when there's a mismatch and when there's no ID at all. The same law limits sales to no more than four tickets per person. Transferring a ticket to someone else is possible in only one way — an official name change in the system, and only once per ticket — with a deadline that closes a day or more before the match, before sales themselves close. Sales open in waves: first to members of the official supporters' club, then to defined groups such as season-ticket holders of the club hosting at that stadium and those who bought for the previous home match, and only at the end, open sale. How fast it sells out: at the last home match measured, all sectors sold out within an hour and a half of open sale beginning. And two facts that close the back door. First: issuing of official supporters' club cards is currently suspended, and an expired card cannot be renewed — meaning you can't simply join today to gain priority. Second: the federation reserves the right to void a ticket and deny entry, and warns explicitly that purchases outside authorized channels often come with a forged or invalid ticket, and that it isn't responsible for such fraud. TikTik obtains tickets for Italy national team home matches without membership in the official supporters' club.

The Stadio Olimpico in Rome is reached on metro line A, and the Dall'Ara in Bologna by city bus from the central station. Let's start with Rome, and with a warning that saves a whole evening: there's no metro station right next to the stadium. You get off at Ottaviano station or Flaminio station and continue from there on foot or by bus. More important — the old tram line that every guide sends you to is not running as a tram. Rome's tram network has been under construction since 3 August 2026, this line has been replaced by buses, and no completion date has been published. Static information boards, including from official bodies, still show the line number as if nothing had changed — so we won't state any line number here, and it's worth checking the network's status again the week before your trip. Nineteen bus lines serve the Foro Italico area, among them from the direction of Ottaviano, from the direction of Lepanto, and toward Piazza Mancini and Piazzale Clodio. One point in your favor: the Rome match is on a Friday evening, and on Fridays and Saturdays the metro runs until about 1:30 a.m. instead of until 11:30 p.m. In Bologna the picture is simpler. The stadium is about three kilometers from the city center and about three and a half from the central station, and the city lines serving it on matchdays are 14, 20 and 21. Here too there's a caveat the operator itself states: on matchdays the lines are diverted from their route for public-order reasons, and what's guaranteed is arrival at a stop close to the stadium — not necessarily right at the gate. Getting there from Bologna Airport: a shuttle to the central station, then a bus from there. Note that the specific operational notice for each of these matches is published only close to the date.

Neither stadium has adjacent public parking, and at both the solution is remote parking and public transport. At the Olimpico in Rome, on matchday a stopping-and-parking ban is imposed on dozens of streets around the Foro Italico — including the street the stadium itself sits on, the square in front of it, and the bridge leading to it. The two parking areas allocated to spectators are Piazzale Clodio and the Villaggio Olimpico complex, and they shift to a permit-holders-only parking regime many hours before the match. It's worth knowing that parking supply in the area has shrunk, because construction sites for the new metro line at the Farnesina and Auditorium stations have taken up parking space. The city parking rate, per the parking operator: one euro an hour outside the restricted zones and one euro twenty within them, four euros for eight continuous hours; in spots marked with white lines, parking is free for up to three hours with a parking disc. In Bologna the picture is even sharper: the Antistadio car park adjacent to the stadium is closed to the public, entry only with an authorized pass, and within the ring around the stadium vehicle entry is banned from two hours before until the start of the match, and again from the end of the match until two hours after. The parking bans there are backed by actual towing, and start three to six hours before. The only official solution for those arriving by car is the Tanari park-and-ride car park, where parking is free for anyone who continues from there on the shuttle bus to the stadium. Important note: this is how it works for every match at both stadiums, but the exact operational orders for this season are published separately and sometimes take effect late, and an international match is exactly the case where the plan gets readjusted.

You fly directly from Tel Aviv to Rome, and get to Bologna by train from Rome — because on the date of the Bologna match there's no direct flight. This is the point that's important to understand before buying a plane ticket. To Rome, Fiumicino Airport is linked to Tel Aviv by frequent daily direct flights. From there to the city center there's a dedicated direct express train with no stops to Roma Termini station: thirty-two minutes, departing every quarter hour, from 5:38 a.m. until 11:27 p.m., at a price of fourteen euros. The train station is inside the airport grounds, and there are also regional trains to other stations in Rome. For Bologna, on the other hand, the picture is surprising: Bologna Airport's scheduled timetable for summer 2026 does include a direct route to Tel Aviv, but it stops at the end of September and resumes only in mid-October — meaning that exactly on the match date, 5 October, there's no direct flight scheduled in either direction. The practical route is to fly to Rome and continue by fast train: from Roma Termini to Bologna Centrale there are frequent direct trains, roughly every quarter hour in the morning hours, with a journey time of about two hours ten minutes to two and a half hours. If you do arrive directly at Bologna Airport, the monorail connecting it to the central station takes about seven minutes, departs up to eight times an hour, runs from 5:40 a.m. until midnight, and costs twelve euros eighty for a one-way trip; after midnight a bus line replaces it, and the same ticket is valid on it. Final notes for planning: both matches kick off at a quarter to nine in the evening, so in both cases you need to sleep in the host city rather than plan a day trip.

No. Israelis enter Schengen-area countries visa-free for stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period, and all that's required is a valid passport. Worth knowing what's coming: the European Union is launching the ETIAS authorization system in the last quarter of 2026. Once it takes effect, an online authorization will be required in advance, at a cost of €7, valid for three years or until the passport expires — whichever comes first. As of today the system is not active and no action is required from you. Important warning: the EU warns that many sites impersonate the official site, use the EU logo and charge inflated fees or steal passport and credit card details. There is only one official site — europa.eu/etias — and any address not on the europa.eu domain is not official.

At the Olimpico the curvas are the atmosphere stands and the long tribunas are the quiet stands. The stadium is built with two long stands — Monte Mario in the west and Tevere in the east — two curvas behind the goals, and four corner sections called Distinti. The tribunas are the more expensive, quieter option, and their central sectors are reserved for official guests and dignitaries; anyone who wants a good, comfortable view sits there. The curvas are the complete opposite: that's where the organized supporter groups sit, and that's the source of the noise. Note a feature of a multi-purpose stadium — the running track keeps the stands away from the grass, so the distance from the pitch is greater than at a pure football stadium. At the Dall'Ara in Bologna the layout is different. The north stand, officially named for Andrea Costa and Giacomo Bulgarelli and marketed by the club as the Curva Bulgarelli, is the loud home ultras stand — and it's worth knowing this is one stand, not two, even though both names circulate separately online. Opposite it, behind the other goal, is the south stand, named for San Luca and Árpád Weisz. The covered tribuna is the main stand, and the uncovered Distinti is the quieter side, with a view of the Marathon Tower and San Luca hill. One note without a definite answer: the location of the away section at national-team matches isn't necessarily the same as at club matches, and it hasn't been published for either of these two matches. Rival fans, in any case, buy only through their own national federation and only for the away section.

These are Italy's first official matches since failing to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, and under a new coach. Italy lost on penalties to Bosnia in Zenica on 31 March 2026 in the European playoff — 1-1 after extra time and then 4-1 on penalties — and failed to qualify for the tournament for the third time in a row. Afterward came a turbulent year on the bench: Gennaro Gattuso ended his tenure on 3 April 2026, and Roberto Mancini was appointed coach on 28 July 2026 in an official federation announcement — his second return to the role, alongside Claudio Ranieri as the federation's technical director. On 6 August his staff was announced ahead of the September gathering. In the 2026/27 Nations League, Italy are drawn in League A, Group 1, against France, Belgium and Türkiye — a draw held in Brussels in February 2026. The format is cruel both ways: the top two advance to the quarterfinals, the fourth is relegated to League B, and the third is forced into a survival playoff. And the practical angle for a traveler, one that isn't written anywhere else: UEFA has this year merged the September and October windows into one long window, between 24 September and 6 October, in which Italy play four matches in eleven days. That's why the two home matches fall on a Friday and a Monday — dates that look odd but aren't a mistake — and that's also why Serie A pauses during that same window, so you can't add a Serie A match to the trip.

The big match is Italy against Belgium at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, on Friday 25 September 2026 at 20:45. Three reasons make it so. First, it's Roberto Mancini's debut match in his second spell on the bench, and the national team's first official match since the World Cup failure. Second, Belgium are the senior of the two visiting sides — in the Nations League draw they were seeded in Pot 3 and Türkiye in Pot 4. And third, it's a direct rematch: the national team's last match in Rome was against this exact opponent, Belgium, 2-2 in October 2024 after Italy had led 2-0. The second home match, against Türkiye at the Dall'Ara in Bologna on Monday 5 October 2026 at the same time, is a completely different and no less interesting story: on the Turkish bench sits an Italian, Vincenzo Montella, whose contract has been extended to 2028; Türkiye did play at the 2026 World Cup while Italy stayed home; and it's the match that closes the four-match window — meaning that by then it will already be clear whether Italy are fighting for the top of the group or for survival in League A. Two planning notes: ten days separate the two matches, and the national team isn't in Italy in between at all, so there's no way to link them into one short trip. And the dates play out in opposite ways — Rome on Friday fits into a weekend, Bologna on Monday requires a day off.