Officials in the small Italian city of Crotone figured things were going to get wild on Wednesday when Juventus, one of the country’s best and most popular soccer teams, came to town to face its squad. So they made a plan.
Along with bumping up security around the coastal city’s sold-out, 16,000-seat stadium, officials also put extra guards around its hospital, according to reports, which happens to be situated across from the stadium and offers some of the best views of the action from its higher floors.
Ospedale San Giovanni di Dio officials wanted to avoid a situation that occurred a decade ago, when the two teams met in a lower-league match that saw several fans disguise themselves as visitors of patients just to stake out a spot at one of the upper-floor windows, Italian sports website CalcioNews24 reports. And so for the day, the hospital instituted a “patient-only” admittance policy.
While that deterred most people from trying to sneak in, one man apparently had a plan – he’d just fake an emergency illness to gain access.
According to Italy’s Reggio Informa, the man’s scheme failed, however. Hospital officials quickly sniffed out that the die-hard Juventus fan wasn’t actually dying at all and sent him on his way.
It remains unclear whether the man got to see much of the game, while he tried to pull a fast one on hospital staff.
No surprise, Juventus ended up winning, 2-0, over Crotone, which is competing for the first time in Italy’s top-flight league after being promoted last season. The team is in danger of being relegated back to Serie B, however, as it sits in 19th place out of 20 teams, 44 points behind leaders Juventus.