We publish the story of Dora Scavello, 33 year-old Cosenza-born graphic designer, who has lived and worked in London for nine years. She has seen Italy play five finals in her life (and win two of them!), but EURO 2020 felt like “her own” more than any other, as she experienced it far from home but close to the Italy team.

It all started the day after the Turkey win when, off doing the shopping in a historic Italian food shop in North London, an old man in the queue asked for an Italian flag for his grandson. Feeling the positive vines and cuteness of the scene, I then bought one too. However, I did not put it up until after we had won, as I am a very superstitious person!

Like Vialli, I also kept to a pretty rigid ritual throughout the tournament: I watched every game at home, with the same top on that I had worn for the Turkey game, and dinner strictly with a side of potatoes.

The only exception was the Spain semi-final, the first Italy game I have ever been to live. For that, we threw all our “spirit of integration” out the window: we wore blue, ate Italian panini and drove to Wembley in a Fiat Panda!

Unfortunately, the next day my worst fear was realised: the final would be against England. Having started after the Ukraine win, the famous “It’s coming home!” battle cry now filled the streets even more. I will leave you to imagine how it was after the Denmark win… they were, by now, even surer that they would lift the trophy!

Italians like me living in England know what I mean: flags everywhere, the BBC counting down to the trophy’s homecoming and the people celebrating throughout the streets. I started receiving chat from everywhere; in the office WhatsApp, my running club email list… Now they were sure: “It’s coming home!” And I - as I said I’m very superstitious - would respond simply: “Well done on your win, it’s yours for sure!”

The morning before the final I went back to my faithful Italian food shop. I really needed a little “Italianness” back in my life!

It was there that I found out that the Azzurri had changed the location for their final training session from Barnet to a training ground in Enfield, exactly my neighbourhood!

So I went on a few London Italian social media groups, and in many of them people spoke of having crossed the whole city just to wish the team well.

The fans camped outside the entrance to Tottenham Hotspur Training Ground were amazing: loads of kids and young people born here in England, some older emigrants, people who will respond to your question in Italian with an English answer but were nonetheless sure that: “We (Italy) will beat them (England)!”

For me, who grew up with the Azzurri, watching the games with my whole family at home by the beach, it was both incredible and surprising to see the love that these people had for the shirt. I spent an entire afternoon there the day before the final and went back the next day at 17:15 to greet the boys en route Wembley. I saw Mancini, Donnarumma and Jorginho, we shouted at the top of our voices that we were with them and that, even though only 6000 Italians would be inside Wembley, without there would be a sea of Azzurri who would be proud of the team whatever might happen!

We watched the final at home, with all the noise of the pub opposite, which was a few seconds ahead: imagine watching penalties when you already have an inkling of the result. It was frightening, of course, but I will never forget the silence after Saka’s penalty! I asked myself: “Is it possibile that he still hasn’t taken it?”

But no, he had taken it - Donnarumma’s save, though, had silenced them all. And so it was that the arrogance, the noise and the chorus of 'It's coming home!' vanished, the pub patrons went home and tears of joy rolled down our cheeks.

The day after was the time for some little celebrations on my part: a triumphant walk wearing an Azzurri top, the flag hanging out my white Panda and a special cake to console my English colleagues.

Yes, because here people do “sweepstakes” for international football tournaments. You put all the names of the teams in a hat and each person pays a fee and takes out 4 teams. Whoever has the winning team at the end, takes the prize. This year, instead of £5 each we decided to put in typical goods from each country as the prize(s). I had: Sweden, Poland, Austria and Hungary, so I knew I was unlikely to win, but at least I could take the satisfaction of baking a 'Hungarian Cake', which when rotated by 90 degrees became a EURO 2020 Winner cake! They all appreciated it bar my boss, who on the Friday had wished me a “Fantastic weekend ... up until eight o’clock on Sunday evening!”

My partner in all this was Raul, my boyfriend. We actually met two weeks before the 2012 Euros final loss to Spain, so to celebrate seeing the team win at Wembley nine years later was an incredible feeling.

It was tough being away from home for this tournament, but as my father says: “Losing to England in England would be terrible, but what about winning against England in England?!”

That’s all from your London emigrants. Thank you Azzurri, it was quite a ride!