Letter From Bergamo: Under the moonlit Citta Alta, we sup pints with Italian Gunners

Late-night drinking sessions in the yellow-walled Tucans Pub among Arsenal obsessives certainly help to dull the pain of Odegaard’s lengthy absence.

Letter from Bergamo

The Champions League is the passionate point of discussion in a late-night bar high up in Bergamo’s old town, or Citta Alta.

Walking uphill on cobbles lit by moonlight, through the imposing honey-coloured Porto San Giacomo, an evocative medieval gate set alongside sturdy World Heritage-listed Venetian stone walls, you eventually reach a welcoming Irish bar, set on a bend.