Lake Como had an international reputation long before its football club began making European headlines. The scenery and the visitors were already there. Inside the stadium, supporters had lived through a rather less glamorous sequence of relegations, financial trouble and fresh starts.

In 2017, Como was starting again in Serie D, the fourth tier of Italian football. Nine years later, it has just beaten Lens 9-1 away from home in the Champions League, with Cesc Fabregas coaching a team that is arguably the most exciting to watch in Europe at the moment.

The result in Lens was extraordinary. But very few people are aware of how Como created the conditions for a night like that to become possible.

A club with a past, and too many restarts

Como’s history stretches back to 1907. Before returning in 2024, the club had already spent 13 seasons in Serie A. It had a place in Italian football’s memory, although its previous top-flight appearance, in 2002/03, wasn’t this successful.

The years that followed brought repeated financial trouble. The club’s own history records a brief return to Serie B in 2015, immediate relegation, bankruptcy and an unsuccessful ownership transition. By 2017/18, Como was rebuilding in Serie D.

The ownership change that reshaped its future arrived on April 4, 2019, when London-based SENT Entertainment acquired the club. Promotion to Serie C followed that spring. Como then won its Serie C group in 2020/21 and returned to Serie B, where it stayed for three seasons before the eventual promotion to Serie A.

What the Hartono family saw in Como

SENT brought the backing of Indonesia’s Hartono family, whose business interests include the Djarum group. UK company records identify Robert Budi Hartono as SENT’s controlling person. For a club accustomed to financial uncertainty, that ownership gave the rebuilding effort a very different starting point.

Suwarso has helped turn that backing into a broader commercial plan. In a 2024 interview with Reuters, he described linking football to the city’s appeal through tourism, fashion, retail and media. The attraction was easy to understand: a globally recognizable destination offered ways to reach an audience far beyond the club’s existing supporters.

The football operation needed its own investment. Como acquired the Mozzate training center in 2021, adding a permanent asset around which the first team and academy could develop. That kind of work gives a project substance between transfer windows, when the daily business of improving players takes place.

The spending on the squad has also been substantial. In August 2026, La Gazzetta dello Sport reported transfer expenditure of €342 million since the start of 2024/25. That figure puts the scale of the ambition into perspective.

Suwarso oversees the project as president, with sporting director Carlalberto Ludi central to the football operation. Their challenge is to make recruitment, facilities and coaching serve the same purpose. The more expensive the squad becomes, the more important those decisions are.

Fabregas grew into the project

Fabregas arrived as a player in 2022, when Como was still in Serie B. Thierry Henry also joined as a shareholder that year, giving the club another recognizable figure attached to its ambitions.

Fabregas’s involvement gradually became more substantial. After retiring, he worked with the youth team and took interim charge of the senior side in November 2023. His coaching qualifications were still being completed, so Osian Roberts became caretaker head coach, with the Spaniard remaining on the staff.

Roberts deserves his place in this account. Together, they helped Como finish second in Serie B in 2023/24. The decisive draw with Cosenza on May 10, 2024 ended a 21-year absence from the top flight. Patrick Cutrone, playing for his hometown club, had scored 14 league goals along the way.

That promotion connected the international ambitions of the owners with something much closer to home. For supporters who had followed Como through the lower divisions, Serie A meant seeing a familiar shirt in a competition that had been missing from their lives for more than two decades.

Fabregas was appointed permanent head coach in July 2024, while Roberts moved into a development role. The club was giving a young coach room to establish his ideas while keeping experienced football knowledge around him.

The first full Serie A season ended in tenth place with 49 points. The next season was even more successful and brought Champions League qualification.

The football gives the project an identity

Fabregas has made Como recognizable on the field. The team wants the ball, looks for ways through an opponent’s pressure, and gives technically gifted players enough support to attempt difficult things.

The 4-2-3-1 provides a starting structure. Within it, midfielders can drop toward the defense, fullbacks advance and attacking players move inside. Coaches’ Voice documented those rotations in 2025, showing how the foundations of the current approach were already developing in Fabregas’s first Serie A season.

His explanation after the recent win over Manchester United was particularly revealing. Speaking to TNT Sports, Fabregas described exploiting the spaces United’s pressing decisions left available. Two center backs could work around one forward; a player stepping toward a center back could leave Como’s fullback free.

“I don’t like passing the ball just to pass the ball,” he said.

This is very important to understand when watching the game. Fabregas is clearly influenced by the 21st-century Spanish school of football, or tiki-taka, made by Pep Guardiola in Barcelona, the system in which Fabregas also excelled. However, his philosophy is more concrete and similar to Luis Enrique’s, who has a more direct approach with PSG.

While circulating the ball around, Como makes their opponent move, and then tries to attack the opening that follows. A midfielder coming short can draw a marker away from the space another player wants to enter. A fullback advancing can give the attack width while a teammate moves closer to goal.

OF course, this is not easy, and requires considerable coordination. The player receiving under pressure needs to trust that the next option will appear. That’s why all Como’s players are technically gifted, and they are amazing when solving pressing and transforming from defense to attack.

Without the ball, Fabregas has used a 4-4-2 shape, narrowing the midfield and looking to direct opponents toward the touchline. The forwards begin the pressure, but the midfield and defense have to move with them. The attacking football depends on that collective work.

Paz, Douvikas and the players around them

Nico Paz gives Como a player who can turn that structure into something exceptional. His left foot can supply the pass beyond the defense, the shot from the edge of the area or the touch that lets him escape a crowded midfield.

His two goals and an assist against Manchester United were followed by another goal and two assists at Lens. After four Champions League appearances this season, he has three goals and five assists.

Tasos Douvikas gives those creative qualities a willing partner. His movement beyond the back line can pull defenders deeper, while his presence near goal gives teammates a target for the final ball. His hat trick at Lens took him to six Champions League goals, having scored in all four of Como’s matches.

My reading of their partnership is that each helps make the other’s decisions easier. Paz can look forward knowing someone will attack the space. Douvikas can begin a run knowing the player behind him is capable of seeing it.

Maximo Perrone and Luis Milla help connect the buildup to those attacking players. Lucas Da Cunha contributes movement and combinations, Maxence Caqueret offers another midfielder comfortable in tight spaces, and Martin Baturina gives Fabregas an additional creative option.

The second goal in the 9-1 win at Lens brought several of those ideas together. The move began with Jean Butez, Paz delivered toward the far post, Alex Valle arrived to volley across goal, and Douvikas finished. Four different roles contributed to one attack.

By full time, seven Como players had scored, including substitutes Mattia Liberali, Baturina and 18-year-old debutant Matteo Papaccioli.

This season is developing into something special

Como’s first four Champions League results are remarkable: 4-1 against Leipzig, a 3-2 defeat at Feyenoord, 4-1 against United and 9-1 at Lens. That leaves 19 goals scored, six conceded and nine points, with Como fourth in the league-phase standings after matchday four.

Before the European opener, Fabregas had urged his players to approach the Champions League like any other game. The team has carried its ambition into the competition, even when that has involved accepting risks.

The domestic results are important to the argument. Como is also fourth in Serie A and has won four consecutive league matches.

A season needs those victories too. European masterpiece is setting the spotlight on the team, but qualifying for the Champions League again depends on collecting points through months of domestic competition.

How far can the project go?

There are still weaknesses for opponents to examine. Como has conceded in every Champions League match, and Feyenoord has already shown that its approach can be beaten. When the press breaks down, the space behind the defense can become a problem.

Fabregas has acknowledged that trade-off. After the October win at Fiorentina, he discussed difficulties defending balls in behind in an earlier match against Frosinone. His assessment of those risks sounded like a coach still working through problems as the level rises.

Inter awaits in Serie A after winning 3-0 at Feyenoord. Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona are among Como’s remaining European opponents. Those games will help establish how well the team’s habits survive against stronger pressure and better finishing.

The longer challenge belongs to the whole club: retaining important players, spending effectively and keeping the football operation aligned as expectations grow. The owners have supplied considerable resources. Fabregas and his staff have given the squad a way to use its talent together. Sustaining both parts will determine what follows.

For the supporters who watched Como restart in Serie D, there is already plenty to absorb. The journey back to Serie A took years. Two seasons later, their club is scoring nine in a Champions League away game.