Any other provincial capital would be happy to be in this situation. In Siena they have a basketball team rated among the first four in Europe, and a football team close to the Serie A.
You would expect this in a big city, not in a town with a population of less than 60,000. But Siena is living this golden period in all ease. Indeed, the current moment of sporting glory doesn’t seem to be greatly affecting a long-established scale of values of what is important in local events.
The explanation of why an Italian cliché – football above everything – is apparently ineffectual in this town can be found in the words of footballer Michele Mignani: “Mens Sana [the basketball team] and our own team are just a winter pastime.
When spring comes everybody is already focused on the Palio.” That comes from the team captain, the man who leads the strongest defence among the B teams. And it’s true.
Football and basketball are second-class sporting events in Siena. The fact is that we are comparing a historical horse-race that has seen almost a half-century of duels down the home straight and two sports that only of late have begun to offer strong emotions. When you meet the legendary Palio jockey Andrea De Cortes, nickname Aceto (vinegar), you start to understand why this man is more an institution than any political figure. “I come from Sardinia. It took me some ten years to take in the peculiarities of this town.
The people of Siena are rather withdrawn, they don’t easily exchange thoughts and feelings with strangers.
You have to win their trust through your actions. I think I’ve managed to do that.” Having triumphed in no fewer than 14 Palio races, Aceto now finds open doors anywhere he goes in Siena. And all that for being a jockey who rides for one of the 17 contrade (districts) in a race held two times a year? This is the focal point. It’s not easy to explain to foreigners the essence and the importance of the July and August appointments with the Palio.

A single day, only a few minutes actually, and sometimes just the seconds surrounding the start, will leave a lasting impression on all those who assist, whether as participants or spectators.
The Palio is a free-for-all that can reach disconcerting levels of brutality, the only rule being that there are no rules. Brawls, furious rows, collective hysteria, uncontrolled weeping and boundless joy. You see it all before and after those crucial three turns around Piazza del Campo. It’s the call of man’s (and woman’s) primitive instincts, and that explains why a good number of people lose all restraint on this occasion. “You learn what the Palio is when you’re still a child,” submits Matteo Trefolini, sienese and first-class referee in the Serie A. “You see it from your friends and relatives, who live for this challenge from dawn to dark. It’s a combination of feelings that get inside you little by little, year after year. And when you grow up you find that you are tied to your contrada for good and all.” Segregated in a marginal role, whereas in other cities they would dominate the scene, football and basketball are trying to reverse the trend. But there’s a tough argument to be dealt with. Says Aceto: “A few days ago I happened to see an interview with Corradi [a player with the Lazio football team, and the first sienese to don the national jersey].
He was asked if he thought his success would make him more popular in Siena than Aceto, myself. Bernardo’s reply clearly expresses what this town feels. He said: ‘In Siena the Palio is the event.
And Aceto represents the Palio’s modern history. You can’t even begin to compare anything else with the emotions that my fellow townspeople have received from his feats.’” So we might as well take what’s left. And what’s left is quite something, if we consider what these “secondary sports” have achieved thanks to the efforts of both clubs, Siena AC and Mens Sana Basket. “I consider it positive that our fans have set aside the rivalries between contrade and have come together as supporters; otherwise it would have been hard to envision any unity at all,” says Giuseppe Papadopulo, trainer of the football team. Adds Alfredo Tanzi, city-councillor responsible for sporting activities: “On our part, we are happy to see that besides the Palio there are other healthy and stimulating rivalries.

Thanks to these two teams we have been able to find the necessary funding for setting up basic sports facilities. We’ve also found money to put into other sports that are less celebrated.” Rivalries? This is a town that, apart from the Palio, can afford different time slots for home matches. And yet it distinguishes between football fans and basketball fans? It does. “There is a kind of mutual control,” explains Simone Tiribocchi, the football team’s top scorer and a basketball fan himself. “Those who come to see our matches have to go incognito if they want to see a basketball game. Basketball supporters consider themselves the “noble” part of the town’s sports fans, and they dislike “contamination” with other supporters”.
So can a European-level basketball team coexist in the same town with a football team that has the potential of playing in the world’s most exciting championship? “I don’t think that’s a problem,” says Ergin Ataman, the Mens Sana trainer. “If they can manage in Barcelona, where there are two much more important teams that are not easy to administer on the European level, I don’t see why we can’t.” It might be so, but let’s not forget that normality is not a commodity you can easily find in Siena.

Translated by interpres sas