Ragazzi di stadio is the first photographic document on Italy’s football ultras culture.  Made in 1979 by Turin-based director and photographer Daniele Segre (1952–2024), the reportage  has become a cult work over time – yet it remains almost inaccessible, as elusive as the few (and  rare) copies of the book still in circulation.  

The reportage belongs to a trilogy, which began in 1978 with the short film Il potere dev’essere  bianconero, continued with the book (1979) and film (1980) Ragazzi di stadio, and concluded in  2018 with Ragazzi di stadio, quarant’anni dopo.  

Segre’s photographs explore football fandom in Italy’s ‘motor town’ at the height of the Anni di  Piombo (Years of Lead), capturing Torino and Juventus supporters amidst smoke bombs, scarves,  drums, graffiti, and P38s. His shots intertwine sociological and artistic research, placing Segre’s  work alongside that of major Italian photographers of the 1970s, such as Gabriele Basilico and  Letizia Battaglia while maintaining a unique perspective: that of football fandom as a countercultural  act of rebellion and a form of emancipation from the alienation of he factory-city.  

The images bear witness to how the curve (terraces) of Italian football grounds became, during that  period, a hybrid of subcultures, fashion, and politics. It was the rise of a rebellious style unique to Italy, where punk and freak elements merged with the paramilitary etiquette of extra-parliamentary  militancy and street guerrilla.  

Above all, Segre’s ‘ragazzi di stadio’, his stadium kids, are faces that express adolescent ecstasy  and urgency, portraying a way of supporting a team that is, first and foremost, an act of resistance  and communal solidarity. Their presence challenges the official culture’s demonisation of these  youngsters. Ragazzi di stadio was, in fact, released around the same time of the tragic death of  supporter Vincenzo Paparelli during the Rome derby between AS Roma and Lazio: one of the first  moments when the ultras phenomenon was placed under intense scrutiny by the Italian media. 

The exhibition

A year after the passing of Daniele Segre and on the occasion of the highly anticipated reissue  of Ragazzi di stadio (ETS Edizioni), produced by I Cammelli and curated by the director’s family  and close collaborators, Ragazzi di Strada brings  the original photographs back into an exhibition  context for the first time since 1979, in the space of Milan independent bookstore Commerce.

The display is enriched with previously unseen material from Segre’s archive, along with rare fandom ephemera from Torino and Juventus supporters, including  objects, personal photographs, and editorial memorabilia.  

Also on show is a flag designed by Ragazzi di Strada, an installation that reflects on the use of the skull iconography by both Italian ultras and the British punk scene, which in the very same years of Segre’s photographs blossomed in London. More specifically, the flag plays on the duality of Vivienne Westwood’s cult “too fast to live too young to die” pay-off and the “daspo”, the ban assigned to Italian football fans for riotous behaviour.

At the heart of the curatorial concept is the desire to go beyond football fandom, shifting instead  the focus to street style, subcultures, and the socio-political nuances captured in Daniele Segre’s  photographs.