Sweet Soccer comes to an end in Catanzaro The last stop featured a 4-a-side futsal tournament

The Sweet Soccer journey has reached Catanzaro. After travelling through Milan, Genoa and Cagliari, the project born from the collaboration between nss sports and Cisalfa Sport has brought its Italian tour to a close at Campo Aldisio, once again taking football beyond the stadiums and into the spaces where its culture continues to grow and evolve.

For the final stop, the game took the form of 4-a-side futsal: a fast, physical format that brought football back to its simplest form. One ball, one pitch and a community brought together by the same passion. This is how Sweet Soccer chose to close its journey across Italy, staying true to the idea at the heart of the project: football is not just a sport, but also a culture, a language and a way of bringing people together.

Off the pitch, the day continued with Peroni and Lay’s, present throughout the Catanzaro stop during the breaks and moments shared between games. Another part of Sweet Soccer’s more informal side, where spending time together around football matters just as much as what happens on the pitch.

From Milan to Catanzaro, a tour through Italian football culture

Catanzaro was the final stop on a journey that began in Milan, at the Edicola on Piazza Bruno Buozzi, where Sweet Soccer was first introduced alongside the Sweet Soccer Kit and Sweet Soccer, the fanzine dedicated to street football. From there, the project travelled across Italy, turning each stop into a different way of experiencing the same idea of football.

In Milan, the opening stop saw street football take the form of a Mundialito tournament. In Genoa, the focus shifted to 2-a-side tournaments, while in Cagliari the format moved onto the sand at Coco Beach, with a 2 vs 2 footvolley tournament. Each city found its own way of playing the game, while keeping the same thread running through the entire project: using football as a meeting point for sport, lifestyle, culture and community.

The final game in Catanzaro

With Catanzaro, Sweet Soccer took this idea further south. On 19 September, Campo Aldisio became the meeting point for the final stop of the project, with a 5-a-side futsal tournament at the centre of the day. A different format from those seen in the previous cities, but one that remained true to the spirit of the tour: allowing the setting and the local community to shape the way football is experienced.

From Milan to Genoa, through Cagliari and finally to Catanzaro, Sweet Soccer has created a travelling portrait of Italian football culture. Four cities, four different ways of playing and experiencing the game, connected by the same idea: before being a competition, football is a language that brings people together. And that is what remains at the end of the tour. The pitch, the city and the rules may change, but the ball still does the same thing: it creates a space for people to come together.