British expats arrive in Rome for England v Ukraine

Major soccer fans Nick Fox, 29 and John Robinson, 29 are English expats who live in Berlin and travelled straight to the Italian capital from Bucharest where they watched France v Switzerland in the round of 16.

Fox already had tickets for the quarter-final match in Rome without knowing who would be playing. His friends in the UK who had the other three tickets were not able to attend because of the mandatory five-day quarantine for arrivals in the UK, so instead his British friends who also live in Berlin took the tickets.

"On paper England should be the better team but, do I trust the England team? Never, I've learnt better than that! Even after beating Germany. It's a better team than usual so yeah, hopefully we will be able to do it," Robinson said.

As for traveling to Italy, there is no quarantine for EU countries but they do need a negative coronavirus test to get into the country.

Italy has warned any fans from England not to try to use loopholes in COVID-19 travel restrictions to sneak into the quarter-finals Euro 2020 clash between England and Ukraine in Rome on Saturday (July 3) even if they have a ticket.

In an effort to prevent the spread of the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant, Rome last month introduced a five-day quarantine for anyone coming to Italy who had been to Britain in the previous two weeks.

Checks are expected as people enter the stadium for the match. Anyone found to have ignored general quarantine rules face a fine of up to 3,000 euros ($3,555), the health ministry said.

UEFA has said 16,000 fans will be let into Saturday's game - 25% of its total capacity.