ITALY. FAILED TO QUALIFY FOR THE 2026 WORLD CUP. OFF THE FIELD, ON THE TERRACES, THEY WERE ALWAYS WORLD CLASS. THIS IS THE EXCEPTIONALLY SCARCE 1979 FIRST EDITION OF RAGAZZI DI STADIO, DANIELE SEGRE'S ALL-TIME GREAT STUDY OF TURIN'S JUVENTUS ULTRAS. FOR THE FANS OF HARDCORE FANS.

What a cover that is! This young man with his gloves tucked into his jumper, tied with a second scarf (goodness, what styling!) is a member of the Fossa dei Campioni ultras group of Juventus fans.  

Appropriately enough, the graffiti bridge quotes Dante's Inferno: "Abandon all hope... Ye who enter here." The photograph is taken at the old Stadio Comunale di Torino which, at the time, Juventus shared with Torino. 

Daniele Segre spent two years photographing the ultras of Turin. In rough translation he explains the motivation: 

"I was inspired by a slogan I read on a wall in Turin that read, "Power must be black and white." I, who had also followed the political situations that developed after 1968 as a photographer, was struck by that slogan, which translated the 1968 slogan, "Power must be workers," from political language to sports language."

Segre also made a documentary that you can see here. 

FIGHTERS and FOSSA were two different but closely related Juventus ultra groups. We don't know what was in the box - probably not his sandwiches. 

Fair to say that the violence in the book was real. It should also be noted, as Segre says in interviews about this project, that the ultra groups were born originally out of left wing groups but became more right wing toward the end of the seventies. We haven't show any of the pictures but there are quite a number of fascist graphics and gestures in the book.  

Thankfully not every fan is a hard-right hooligan. Our best guess to this guy's bag on a stick is that he is carrying a flag in the bag. 

Ragazzi di Stadio roughly translates as 'boys of the terraces'. There are, however, a lot of women and girls in the book. This young woman is actually a visiting Atlanta fan. The skull and cross bones appears to be a common graphic to all Italian ultra groups. 

You can sense the noise, energy, weather, pride, violence, humour and even more elements in so many of Segre's images. Possibly the book's best photograph is the one above.

It is a terrific book. We have two copies of the 1979 first edition on the black and white button below.