Polish fans get chance to see Italy in action

Around 10,000 people will have a chance to watch Italy in training on June 5 at their Euro 2012 base-camp in the southern city of Krakow, stadium officials said.

“We’ve been inundated with queries about being able to come to watch the open training session. The interest has been massive,” Tomasz Gawedzki, spokesman of Krakow club Cracovia, was quoted as saying by Poland’s PAP news agency.

The chance to watch Italy’s stars in action may help cheer up local fans.

Cracovia have just been relegated from the Polish top flight, after propping up the table for much of this season.

Tickets for the Italians’ evening training session will be free, and available from June 2, with no-one allowed to have more than two.

Italy are due to fly into Krakow on June 5.

While tourist hub Krakow is not among Poland’s four host cities for the European Cham-pionship, it managed to attract a trio of crowd-pulling teams.

Besides Italy, England and the Netherlands also opted to set up shop there, even though they will be playing their group stage matches in fellow Euro 2012 host nation Ukraine.

The Dutch are to train at the stadium of top-flight Wisla Krakow, and England at the ground of lower-league club Hutnik.

Italy are in the Polish-based Group B at the tournament, along with Ireland, Croatia and reigning champions Spain.

Matches in the group will take place in the western city of Poznan and the northern port of Gdansk, where Italy open their campaign against Spain on June 10.

Euro 2012 kicks off on June 8 when Poland face Greece in the capital Warsaw.

Their other Group A rivals are the Czech Republic and Russia, with the quartet’s other matches taking place in Wroclaw in southwest Poland.