Whoever gets through the few-centimeter puddles in front of Stadio San Nicola, entering the stands will see dirty chairs, rubbish and uncleaned toilets. The home of SSC Bari, once host of the World Cup and the European Cup final, today evokes bitterness among fans.

A splendour lost in the annals of history

Built especially for the 1990 World Cup with a capacity of 58,000, Stadio San Nicola is to this day the third largest venue in Italy. The venue saw Italy win the bronze medal against England thanks to Salvatore Schillaci, who managed to keep his cool in a nervy final and confidently converted the penalty to give his team the lead in the 84th minute (2:1).

But before the match for 3rd place took place, four more matches were played in Bari during the World Cup, with the players from the USSR and Czechoslovakia, among others, taking to the pitch at Stadio San Nicola. Like these two countries, however, the heyday of the spaceship, as the stadium is known among fans, belongs to history.

Although a year later the stadium was the scene of the European Cup final, its condition deteriorated in the following decades. Lack of money for proper maintenance and renovations, AS Bari's bankruptcy and wandering in Serie B, C and even D, and finally the club's dissolution to be renamed SSC Bari, determined the venue's fate. The detachment of pieces of the membrane was a resounding indication of the problems, but the general neglect is also worrying - in 2016, during the cleaning of the facility, the personnel found rubbish... from the 1990 World Cup.

© Robert Saganowski | Bari’s venue owes the name spaceship, to the oval concrete structure and the curved roof. The distinctive stadium was inaugurated just before the start of the 1990 World Cup.

Puddles, dirt and... guano

In recent years, the Municipality of Bari has financed the replacement of chairs, turf, scoreboards and lighting. Thanks to these measures, the Italian national team returned to the venue after an absence of seven years, with as many as 56,186 fans attending the match against Malta (4:0). However, the works were not enough to solve the serious shortcomings of the stadium, which aspires to host the EURO 2032 co-organised by Italy and Turkey.

That's because, during the SSC Bari - Brescia match (2:2), fans entering the venue were confronted by... a lake. Torrential rain led to puddles several centimetres deep, so that the daredevils who decided to cross to the stands watched the match in wet shoes. The turf also failed to withstand the rainfall, and the players spent 90 minutes running in mud.

But repeated flooding in the rainfall is not the only reason for fans' dissatisfaction. Many of them complain about the deteriorating state of the toilets, but also about bird droppings on the seats, which sometimes welcome those entering the stadium. All of this leads to the conclusion that the spaceship is either facing a major upgrade or dropping out of the list of EURO 2032 arenas.