Hattrick made my dream come true - not clickbait

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been watching football. One of the earliest memories was watching an Inter (Internazionale Milano FC) match vs Real Madrid. It was that moment that I became a fan of the team that had Baggio or Ronaldo “Il Fenomeno”.

It’s worth noting that I’m not Italian nor do I live in Italy, so going to an Inter match wasn’t the easiest thing for me. When you’re young you don’t have the money to do so, and when you’re growing up you have less time if you have your own family. Last year when I saw Inter in the UEFA Champions League matched up with Benfica after beating Porto I said to my work colleagues that I will buy a ticket to Inter - Milan for the semifinals phase. I trusted Inter to advance further and I had a hunch Milan would get through vs Napoli with their European experience backing them up.

So it turned out I was right, we had a “Derby Della Madoninna” on our hands in the UEFA Champions League semifinals, what a treat!! Now I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but it’s not everyday that the two teams get to that stage of the competition. On top of that it’s up to chance to get matched together, so considering the previous Inter - Milan in this competition was in 2005 this is a once in 20 years or so event.

Ok alright, I’m going, so now what? Well.. as it turns out every Inter fan and his family plus friends wanted to go to the same match, so the demand was many times the supply. The club has season ticket holders, official fanzones (both in Italy and outside of the country), fans that have a special card that gives them priority to buy tickets. So, the bottom line is that the club gave precedence to season ticket holders, which could buy tickets for them plus 2 other tickets for friends, then the official fanzones, then for fans who had the special card etc. That meant that a regular Joe couldn’t even buy a ticket.

Naturally I had to find and convince an Inter season ticket holder to buy me a ticket. Me, a stranger, instead of buying one for his family or friends. Not to mention that in order to qualify for these extra tickets sale you had to be an “old” season ticket holder, for at least 3-4 years.

How does one find such Inter fans out of the blue, pun intended? Well they’re most likely living in Milan and support Inter right?! Now if there would only be such a community where you could see regions and users that live there, and to click on such users and see if they support Inter or not. Oh wait.. Hattrick does support that, you can even see who is online from a region. With that in mind I made a selection of “candidates”, explained my situation and kindly asked if they could help me out. Out of all of those only a few were season ticket holders, and out of these select few only one said he would help me if it was possible (keep in mind there’s a queue each time tickets are sold, the demand is high and nobody can make promises). So, a day or so before the sale we talked again, I sent him an initial amount of money (as tickets are nominal, if you buy one with a name you cannot exchange it) and the next day (the day of the sale) we had a live chat with screen sharing. He selected the seat I wanted and bought me the ticket.

To summarize a bit at this point: a total stranger from Hattrick (from another country even) bought me a ticket to Inter - Milan, an event which usually happens once every 20 or more years. I paid the official price for the ticket, no more, even though the demand was sky high and the sales restrictions were evidence of that. But this is Internazionale, we are “fratelli del mondo” (brothers of the world). So I deeply thank you my brother, for helping me accomplish my childhood dream of watching my beloved Inter live from Giuseppe Meazza!

One week later I am in Milan, with another Inter fan from Hattrick that lives there, which I’ve known for perhaps 14-15 years (online, from Hattrick of course). He showed me the wonders of the city all day long. A huge thank you, brother, I appreciate it and you’ve made my day!! The next day I was on the stadium for the match. We won 1-0 with a goal from Lautaro and Inter was in the UEFA Champions League final, the first since 2010. I travelled to my rented apartment by subway and it was full of Inter fans chanting all the way, I have never felt more at home!

As PapaMish, a famous Hattrick player from Israel and Youtuber, would put it “Hattrick is more than a game, it’s a community”.

P.S. The flat that I have rented belonged to another season Inter ticket holder, which I found out after the fact. The world is a small place.

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