San Siro, a completely new lawn for the derby: work has already begun

“Don’t worry, we are ready to start with the work of replacing and re-sewing the pitch. The derby will have the turf that such an important and spectacular challenge deserves, and we had guaranteed until the Christmas break ”. Giovanni Castelli is the agronomist responsible for the San Siro lawn. In twenty years he has seen all sorts of things, but never as this time has his work been put in difficulty by events. Nothing irreparable, but he too is sorry for what happened at the Meazza field in the last month and explains the reasons for this crisis. “The calendar was too full of appointments and the field was affected: just think that from Befana to last night at San Siro there were 7 matches between A and Coppa Italia, to which we must add the Super Cup, which during the award ceremony brought about three hundred people in the field. Once two games were played in just 24 hours and in two other cases two games 48 hours apart. We understand the discomfort for the protagonists (and last night Ibra would have blamed his injury on the hard pitch, ed), but we can guarantee that after the break it will be like playing on a new pitch ”.

The stages of the work

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Castelli goes into detail on the works that will start this morning at 9. “Fortunately, there will be no weather problems for the next ten days, neither heavy rain nor snow is expected: stable conditions guarantee zero risks. From the post Milan-Juve the logistics have already been prepared, this morning at 9 we will begin to completely remove the old turf, then from tomorrow until Friday the new lawn arriving from Verona will be rested and the mending work will start from Saturday to Thursday, with four textile machines “. As is well known, since 2013 the Meazza has hosted a mixed synthetic-natural grass pitch, and this has significantly improved the stability of the pitch: “A solution that has existed for about twenty years and which now all the top clubs in Europe use – assures Castelli -. Every two centimeters of grass there is a twenty centimeter long synthetic thread that enters in depth for eighteen while peeping out with two centimeters. In a square meter of clods there are hundreds of threads, it is as if we were putting nails in a board: maximum safety and tightness. Practically it is as if each clod were a box of a puzzle that fits together with the other “.

Logical choice

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But why did he wait so long to intervene? The explanation is simple. “Usually the substitution takes place in the summer, when you have much more time – underlines Castelli -. During the year we work on regeneration, with lamps and all the necessary machinery. But looking at the calendar, we opted for the replacement and mending intervention: after the derby, there will again be a slot of seven events in ten days between the championship and various cups. Starting over with a new lawn was necessary ”. And then there is only to wait, but for the derby, on the weekend of February 6, the show will be guaranteed. Or at least a field up to the challenge.