Como’s Champions League debut arrives on Thursday night, when RB Leipzig visit Sinigaglia stadium in a moment that underlines just how quickly the club has moved from the third tier of Italian football to Europe’s elite.
The setting is part of the story. Como Stadium is old, refurbished and still visibly not modern, but that has only added to the sense of occasion around a fixture that is in huge demand. With only 13,000 seats available, club executives even gave up more than 40 places for older supporters so they could be there for the occasion.
For Mirwan Suwarso, the president who helped steer the club through its transformation, the night is about more than one match. It is about the scale of the project and the speed of the climb.
From Serie C1 to Europe’s elite
Back in 2019, Djarum Group acquired Como when the club was worth less than €1 million. That makes Thursday night’s Champions League debut all the more striking, especially for a club that had only just been promoted to Serie C1 when Suwarso first came across it while exploring Milan with colleagues from Mola TV, after an idea for a football documentary set in Italy had taken shape a few years before 2022.
Suwarso described the discovery as “a happy coincidence”, and there is no better way to frame a story that now has Como standing on one of the biggest stages in club football.
The scale of the ambition is clear too. Suwarso has said the club will “renovate the entire building” and “return it to good condition”, a nod to the work still needed even as Como prepare for the kind of night that would have seemed impossible only a short time ago.
Why the occasion matters
There is also a cultural thread to this story. Suwarso said the project had a familiar feel for audiences because “Serie A's immense popularity in Indonesia during the 1990s” made the game a natural fit for supporters in his home market.
That background helps explain why this is about more than a stadium or a single fixture. Como Stadium may not yet look like a modern European arena, but it is now hosting a Champions League night that reflects how far the club has come.
There is still a football test to be played, of course. Daniele De Rossi’s view is that he “hasn't come across a stronger side since taking charge of Genoa almost a year ago”, which tells you the level of expectation around Como’s challenge. But the broader significance lies in the setting itself: a first Champions League appearance, a demanding opponent and a stadium with limited capacity that has become part of the story.
If Como can turn this into the beginning of a new chapter, Thursday night at Sinigaglia stadium will be remembered as the point when the club’s rise truly reached Europe’s top table.
