Rome Hosts the First Arena Polo European Championship
A historic first in a one-of-a-kind setting. How Arena Polo works — and why it’s so watchable. Italy on the pitch tonight: the only blue jersey in town
Two days ago, a cavalry fanfare echoed through the pine-shaded avenues of Villa Borghese and hundreds of people stopped whatever they were doing to pull out their phones. Tourists mid-gelato, morning joggers, a school group heading toward the Borghese Gallery — all of them suddenly watching a procession of horses and riders in national colours wind their way from Piazzale delle Canestre to the Terrazza del Pincio, with one of the most beautiful views in Europe as a backdrop. Welcome to Piazza di Siena.
The inaugural parade for the FIP Arena Polo European Championship – U.S. Polo Assn. Trophy took place on Tuesday 26 May, led by the Fanfara del 4° Reggimento Carabinieri a Cavallo — Italy’s mounted military police band — and followed by the four competing national teams: Italy, France, England, and Switzerland. It was a scene that felt borrowed from another century and yet landed perfectly in the present, which is more or less the whole point of this event.
A historic first in a one-of-a-kind setting
FISE president Marco Di Paola called it an event capable of uniting tradition, spectacle and sporting passion — and he’s not wrong. The timing is deliberate: 2026 is the centenary year of the FISE itself and of the CSIO di Roma Piazza di Siena, the wider equestrian competition of which this polo championship now forms part. Hosting a historic first edition in a historic year was too good an alignment to pass up.
How Arena Polo works — and why it’s so watchable
For the uninitiated: polo in its standard form involves four players per side, a full-size grass field, and a pace that can feel distant from the stands. Arena Polo changes the equation. The sand field is smaller, the teams are three-a-side, and the action is faster, more physical, and easier to follow. Turnovers come constantly. Riders and horses operate in much tighter space. The sport stops being an elegant spectacle you admire from a distance and becomes something you watch with your pulse up.
That’s the version France played against England on Wednesday evening, opening the championship at 21.30. And that’s the version Italy will play against Switzerland tonight — Thursday 28 May, same time, same arena, free entry for everyone in the stands.
Italy on the pitch tonight: the only blue jersey in town
Captain Stefano Giansanti, Giordano Magini, and Roman Rampello. Those are the three players who will carry Italy’s hopes against the Meier brothers’ Switzerland tonight, and there is something worth saying about the particular emotional charge around this fixture.
In a few weeks, the football World Cup begins. Italy won’t be there — the Azzurri failed to qualify. For a country that processes national identity partly through football colours and tournament runs, the absence lands hard. Which makes the polo pitch at Villa Borghese a rare and oddly touching substitute: the only Italian national team in action this week, playing under the lights, for free, in the middle of Rome. Whether you follow polo or have never watched a chukka in your life, the case for showing up tonight is straightforward.
France, for context, are no easy opponents for anyone in this field — they won the championship’s 2022 precursor event and finished third at last October’s World Championship in the United States. England are one of the countries where polo reached its highest historical expression. Switzerland, represented by the Meier brothers, are a compact and dangerous side.
The full schedule: semifinals and finals ahead
Wednesday’s France vs England and tonight’s Italy vs Switzerland are the two qualifying matches. From there:
Friday 29 May — Semifinals from 20.30: the loser of match 1 faces the winner of match 2, then the winner of match 1 faces the loser of match 2. It’s a format that guarantees every team plays through to the weekend.
Saturday 30 May — Third-place final at 20.30, championship final at 21.30.
All matches at the Galoppatoio di Villa Borghese. All grandstand seats free of charge. The Polo Garden — the event’s VIP hospitality area — offers sunset aperitivi and pitch-side dining for those who want something more structured, but the sport itself costs nothing.
On Wednesday and Thursday evenings, before the main matches, the NextGen programme ran a Junior Polo triangular between regional sides from Lazio, Sardinia, and Emilia-Romagna — a deliberate signal about where FISE wants to take the sport’s development in Italy.
Opera, fanfares, and a Nations Cup — Piazza di Siena’s bigger picture
The Arena Polo championship is the headline act at Villa Borghese this week, but it’s part of something considerably larger. The 93rd edition of the CSIO di Roma — Europe’s most prestigious show jumping event — is running simultaneously, and the programme has been built to feel like a festival rather than a competition calendar.
Wednesday evening opened not with polo but with Armonie di Pace, a free opera concert by Opera Italiana is in the Air, conducted by Maestro Alvise Casellati with the Orchestra della Toscana. Tenor Piero Pretti, soprano Hasmik Torosyan, and bass George Andguladze performed Verdi, Rossini, and Puccini on the same grounds where, two hours later, riders would be swinging mallets. Intesa Sanpaolo sponsored the event as part of the CSIO centenary programme — a partnership between Italian bank and Italian cultural prestige that felt, on the night, entirely natural.
On Friday, the attention shifts to the Piazza di Siena oval for the Nations Cup Intesa Sanpaolo, the showjumping event that anchors the CSIO and carries a particular weight this year given the centenary. The draw took place yesterday at the Casino dell’Orologio: Italy will go first — a reversal from 2025, when they closed the event — and the United States, last year’s winners, will close. The Frecce Tricolori aerobatic team will fly over Piazza di Siena at 13.40; the first rider enters the arena at 14.30. Italy have won the Nations Cup 29 times in the history of the Piazza di Siena event, more than any other nation.
For the next three days, Rome is the capital of European equestrian sport. The Galoppatoio lights come on at 20.30. Bring something to sit on and get there early.
The FIP Arena Polo European Championship continues through Saturday 30 May at the Galoppatoio di Villa Borghese, Rome. Entry is free. The Nations Cup Intesa Sanpaolo takes place Friday 29 May from 14.30 on the Piazza di Siena oval.
