COMO, Italy: Como marked their Champions League debut with a gesture of respect by inviting their older fans to the game against Leipzig on Thursday.
President Mirwan Suwarso and some directors made the magnanimous decision of giving away their own seats, allowing supporters born in 1950 or earlier to attend the sold-out game.
“We will be honored to give up our seat for them,” Suwarso had posted on Instagram.
Capacity was reduced to around 10,000 because the delightful Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia stadium on the shores of Lake Como underwent modifications for the Champions League.
The 119-year-old club reached the competition under coach Cesc Fabregas, a standout goal-scoring midfielder during a stellar club career with Arsenal, Chelsea and Barcelona. He played for the Spain team that won the 2010 World Cup.
Fabregas guided Como to fourth place last season ahead of Juventus and AC Milan to claim Serie A’s final Champions League spot with a high-pressing brand of soccer.
Goals have been coming from 22-year-old playmaker Nico Paz, who has stayed on loan from Real Madrid and burly Greece center forward Anastasios Douvikas.
It will mark the ninth Super Bowl in the Los Angeles area across three venues: the Coliseum (two), Rose Bowl (five) and SoFi (two). But in some ways, all those previous games were a drumroll leading up to this one — Super Bowl LXI, in a futuristic $5-billion stadium, absent the lingering restrictions of a pandemic.
“Super Bowl LVI was an amazing experience, but it was still on that tail end of COVID, and it was not everything that this Super Bowl LXI could be,” said Peter O’Reilly, NFL executive vice president of club business, international and league events.
“We didn’t do a Super Bowl Opening Night — it was virtual — and there were a lot of things we were still adjusting. … It was absolutely spectacular during the weekend and on game day, but I do think this Super Bowl gives us all the chance to do it full-on, in the way an L.A. Super Bowl can and should be.”
In the weeks leading up to the first Super Bowl at SoFi, there were misguided rumblings that the game might be moved to Dallas, because the NFL had secured that city as a backup. But those type of contingency plans are in place for every Super Bowl, and the game was not in serious peril of being moved. Still, there was a cloud of public doubt lingering over the event.
“Those rumors created a lot of havoc and uncertainty in our market,” said Kathy Schloessman, chief executive of the Los Angeles Super Bowl Host Committee for both games. “It was hard to get the excitement going because people didn’t know if the city was open or closed. I almost hate to say it because I don’t want to jinx anything, but this is our first normal Super Bowl planning.”
Super Bowls can take over a city. Look at the games played in New Orleans, Indianapolis or Houston. Seemingly every resident was aware the game was happening. But in some of the bigger cities — New York, Los Angeles, Miami — there aren’t reminders everywhere you turn.
Something that might offset that this season is ESPN is broadcasting the game for the first time, and has been hyping it ever since the most recent Super Bowl ended.
“It’s a year of the Super Bowl for them that ends in Los Angeles,” O’Reilly said. “That feels natural and poetic. I can’t say enough good things about the way they’ve embraced it.”
South side view of the field at SoFi Stadium.
(Sam Farmer / Los Angeles Times)
Disney is the parent company of ESPN, and likewise has embraced the game, which feels like a true confluence of the sports and entertainment industries.
“When I think about L.A. and brands coming together — Disney, SoFi Stadium, the Rams — I think it takes advantage of what the NFL had always hoped when bringing a Los Angeles team back,” Rams president Kevin Demoff said. “SoFi Stadium is that marriage of the NFL and entertainment.”
Whether they play in the game or not, the Rams are intimately connected to this Super Bowl, as they are the host team. That means they have a degree of financial responsibility to make good on the commitments made to the NFL when Los Angeles was awarded the game. They also are allotted more tickets to the game than the other franchises not hosting (or playing in) the event.
Although the Chargers were co-hosts for the first Super Bowl at SoFi, they opted not to host this one. According to a Chargers spokesman, they chose to cede the stage to Rams owner Stan Kroenke, whose vision they credit for the stadium and Hollywood Park development, but will make a “significant seven-figure financial commitment” to the host committee in the run-up to the game.
Part of Kroenke’s vision in moving the Rams and building the stadium and surrounding campus was to shift the center of gravity of the sporting world to Los Angeles. It’s worth noting that SoFi was a central location of the World Cup — the first U.S. goal was scored there — and will play host to swimming events in the 2028 Olympic Games.
“[SoFi] is now established as one of the world’s greatest sporting stages, which the Super Bowl helped put on the map the first time,” Demoff said. “But now it’s in the middle of this global run.”
It isn’t just the Super Bowl. SoFi will also play host to the NFL’s first-ever Thanksgiving Eve game — Rams versus Green Bay Packers — on Netflix.
“If you’re looking at the arc — not as a Super Bowl but how the NFL wanted to come back to Los Angeles — you have Disney, a longstanding, old-school entertainment partner,” Demoff said. “And then you have this element of streaming and new media and where the NFL is heading. It’s a really interesting juxtaposition.”
On Friday night at the SoFi Stadium, there was nothing random about the songs that played just before Karol G took the stage for the first of three evenings at the venue. We can safely assume that the Colombian superstar selected the cuts herself — the perfect tropicoqueta mix to set up the mood.
First, a shadowy “Bésame Mucho”; Elvis Crespo’s merengue smash “Suavemente”; the Afro-Cuban nugget “El Manisero”; and two life-affirming hits by the Queen of Salsa herself, Celia Cruz: “La Vida Es Un Carnaval” and “La Negra Tiene Tumbao.”
These carefully curated gems share a common element: They managed to transcend the stylistic contours of their respective genres and become something bigger — the kind of irresistible, it-takes-a-village anthems that will lure everyone to the dance floor, even if they don’t understand the lyrics.
And that is exactly what Karol G — la bichota, the South American Cleopatra, the woman with the billion-dollar smile — has been doing for global pop since the release of “Tusa,” her imperial duet with Nicki Minaj, back in 2019.
(Jill Connelly / For De Los)
Karol is currently the 42nd-most-streamed artist on Spotify, and her albums “Mañana Será Bonito” (2023) and “Tropicoqueta” (2025) helped reinvent the sound of contemporary Latin. She emerged from the reggaeton thunderstorm that hijacked the planet, but then guided it smoothly into a different aesthetic territory, far away from the movement’s misogynistic toxicity. Her ongoing collaboration with producer Ovy On The Drums — they’re the same age, 35, both from Medellín — was transformative, combining clanging, tribal beats with liquid textures and a refined, champagne-like lightness.
Part of the massive “Viajando Por El Mundo Tropitour,” Friday’s performance confirmed the singer’s stature as one of the most vital and charismatic Latin artists of the 21st century. More than a conventional concert, it felt like a stark, delirious fantasia, a relentless cinematic mosaic of decadent dance numbers and hyper-popped fragmentation presented in five acts, unified by a tropical visual motif: lush vegetation; a blue lagoon where cleansing erotic rituals take place; plumes of purifying fire to expiate the aftertaste of all those failed romances.
(Jill Connelly / For De Los)
Beginning with the wicked reggaeton beat of “Latina Foreva” — an existential jam about curves and pleasure, the freedom of the flesh — Karol ignited a deafening roar of adoration from the full-capacity crowd. For a moment, I got a taste of what Beatlemania must have sounded like in the 1960s.
As the cameras followed her closely, projecting every playful grimace and flirtatious wink onto the giant video screens, the complexity of her artistic persona became increasingly transparent: an indomitable woman who is deeply connected with primal joy and sensuality, but also vulnerable enough to get her heart broken on the way to the red carpet (and still embrace the experience). In the world of Karol G, what doesn’t kill you makes for an international hit.
Admittedly, it was the aggressive, in-your-face numbers that worked best. Karol sounds even better when surrounded by half-naked dancers — “Gatúbela” and “Ojos Ferrari” were highlights in that respect — and the choreography evoked the sweaty rapture of a full-blown Roman orgy.
(Jill Connelly / For De Los)
But she’s also smart enough to alternate the futurism of neo-reggaeton (the cutting-edge territory where her work with producers like Ovy On The Drums and Tainy has given us some astonishing records) with an affectionate nod to the past glories of Afro-Caribbean lore: the 20th century cultural bubble where Colombian families listened to the “14 Cañonazos Bailables” compilations during the Christmas season.
On the title track of “Tropicoqueta,” she draws an imaginary line that connects her current sexual emancipation to the frisky downbeats of 1950s mambo and the early 2000s movement that jazzed up the Afro-Caribbean classics with a digital bounce. On Friday, she salsified “Provenza” and added the riff of Willie Colón’s “La Murga” as an intro to “Tusa.” Her visual recreation of the “Tropicoqueta” album cover onstage was one of the show’s wittiest moments.
At one point after the success of “Mañana Será Bonito,” Karol must have realized that her newly acquired diva status gave her the chance to voice some valuable thoughts on the merits of Latin American culture.
In between songs, Karol spoke with compassion about the recent earthquakes affecting Colombia and Venezuela — the latter of which is where her poised opening act, Elena Rose, also hails from — but her pan-Latino ideology seeped into the music as well. Her face was covered in tears after she performed “Ese Hombre Es Malo” backed by female mariachi players. At the end of the show, a stunning reading of “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” revealed the instinctive ease with which she can navigate the sweet, syncopated phrasing of Dominican merengue.
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Elena Rose opens for Karol G at SoFi. (Jill Connelly/For De Los)
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Inglewood, CA., Aug. 14, 2026. – Opener Elena Rose performs during the first of Karol G’s three nights headlining the SoFi Stadium for her Viajando Por El Mundo Tropitour. (Jill Connelly / For De Los) (Jill Connelly/For De Los)
A few tracks from her recently released sixth studio album,”No Me Arrepiento De Sentir Tanto,” displayed a more introspective side. On the dreamy ballad “Después de Ti,” she was joined on guitar by Greg Gonzalez of Cigarettes After Sex, reenacting their performance together from April, when Karol headlined Coachella.
The deafening volume at SoFi was the only aspect of the show that got in the way. The sound stage felt bludgeoned into submission throughout, as the intense distortion of bass, percussion and guitars made the instrument separation within the mix almost inaudible.
That said, the overall experience transcended the sonic elements, as Karol is clearly using the Tropitour as a good reason to celebrate her extraordinary achievements with the fans (she even hugged a security guard).
Somewhere in the venue, a young Latina girl must have been dazzled by this extravagant spectacle and perhaps dreamed of one day following in the footsteps of Carolina Giraldo Navarro: a gifted singer and composer, a woman intelligent enough to cherish the emotional value of dancing the night away.
