The Match Journal | Ones To Watch
Como 1907: The Project Europe Should Be Watching
Como 1907 are one of Europe’s teams to watch in 2026/27 because their rise is no longer just a comeback story. The modern project links a 2019 ownership reset, President Mirwan Suwarso’s push for a stronger club structure and data-informed decision-making, Cesc Fàbregas’ possession-led football, and recruitment built around technical upside. The result was fourth place in Serie A with 71 points in 2025/26 and a first European campaign, directly in the Champions League league phase. The lake may be the postcard. The system behind the football is now the story.
01 · From Collapse to a New Beginning
02 · The Indonesian Project Behind Como’s Rebirth
03 · Mirwan Suwarso and the Plan
04 · When Cesc Fàbregas Gave Como a Football Identity
05 · How Fàbregas’ Como Play
06 · Recruiting for the Idea
07 · The Players Carrying the Project
08 · From Serie D to the Champions League
09 · The 2026/27 Stress Test
10 · TMJ Verdict
Como’s Modern Story Started in Serie D, Not in the Spotlight.
Before Como became a fashionable name in Serie A, the club had to become stable again. Financial trouble and non-admission to the professional league sent FC Como back to Serie D for 2017/18. Como’s official history records the next decisive turn on 4 April 2019, when UK-based media and entertainment company SENT Entertainment Ltd. acquired the club.
The stated ambition was broader than a first-team rescue. Como’s history page describes a plan for financial stability, corporate structure, sporting infrastructure, the youth academy, the stadium and the senior side. The first visible return came quickly: Como won Serie D, then won Serie C in 2020/21 and returned to Serie A in 2024 after more than two decades away.
That sequence matters because the modern Como project was built in layers. Promotion was an outcome of reconstruction, not the beginning of it.
The Ownership Story Is Bigger Than a Chequebook.
Como’s own website currently uses two descriptions of the 2019 ownership change. Its official history names SENT Entertainment Ltd. as the company that acquired the club, while its English About Us page describes the revival as arriving with acquisition by Indonesia’s Djarum Group. TMJ keeps those formulations distinct rather than treating the two names as legally interchangeable.
What the club’s own material makes clear is the direction of travel: rebuild the institution as well as the team. That has included investment in infrastructure and youth development, while Como have also tried to turn their unusual location into part of a broader global identity. The club’s launch of SENT Tourism, for example, explicitly framed football, hospitality and Lake Como as parts of the same international brand.
That commercial layer matters to the football story because it helps explain why Como’s rise feels different from a short-term promotion gamble. The ambition has been to build a club ecosystem capable of supporting the sporting project as the competitive level rises.
SENT in the official history. Djarum in the club’s About Us.
The distinction is important. The story is Indonesian-backed, but precision matters more than simplifying a corporate relationship the club itself describes in different ways.
The President Became the Bridge Between Ambition and Method.
Mirwan Suwarso is the missing character if Como’s rise is told only as an ownership story followed by a Fàbregas story. Como’s current staff page lists the Indonesian executive as club president, and his public explanations of the rebuild show why his role belongs in the middle of that chain.
In a 2024 interview with Bola.com, Suwarso described the club moving away from decisions based primarily on opinion and investing in data analysis so management could judge the team against more objective signals. He said that analysis exposed underlying performance problems even when results looked acceptable. In his account, Fàbregas’ junior side offered something the data and the eye could both recognise: a clear football vision.
That is the more revealing version of Como’s transformation. The leadership did not simply hire a famous former midfielder and hope charisma would do the rest. It tried to create a framework in which recruitment, analysis, coaching and commercial growth could point in the same direction.
Suwarso’s public vision has also pushed beyond matchday. Como’s own material around the Como Cup and SENT Tourism talks about connecting football with the city, travel, culture and a global audience. That makes the project unusually broad, but the football still has to justify the attention. That is where Fàbregas enters the story.
The Famous Name Became the Sporting Architecture.
Fàbregas was always going to attract attention. What made the appointment meaningful was the fit between his football and the direction the club wanted to build. Suwarso has publicly described seeing a clear vision in Fàbregas’ work with Como’s younger side; the first team now carries ideas recognisable independently of the coach’s playing career. They want the ball, invite pressure rather than simply avoiding it, create spare men around possession and use rotations to open forward lanes.
That matters because celebrity projects usually fade when the football lacks a repeatable mechanism. Como have developed one. The manager is not the article’s main character; he is the architect who has given the club project a coherent sporting language.
Control before chaos.
Como’s identity is not possession for decoration. Their best sequences use control to move an opponent, then accelerate through the space that movement creates.
A 4-2-3-1 on Paper. A Moving Puzzle With the Ball.
Como commonly begin from a 4-2-3-1, but the useful detail is what happens after the first pass. Full-backs, midfielders, the number 10 and wide players alter their heights to create numerical advantages around the ball. Opponents are encouraged to jump forward, then Como look to play through the pressure rather than over it.
Opta’s analysis of the 2025/26 side highlighted their reluctance to go long and their league-leading volume of line-breaking passes at the time of publication. Coaches’ Voice has similarly noted the importance of inside-channel occupation, through balls, maximum width and the close relationship between the nine and number 10.
Create the Gap Before Attacking It
Como are comfortable circulating close to their own goal if it pulls an opponent away from the next line. The risk is deliberate because the reward is space behind pressure.
Numbers Around the Ball, Width Around the Block
The midfield and attacking line compress around central combinations while wide players can stretch the last line. That creates several routes forward rather than one rehearsed lane.
Win Territory, Not Just Possession
The same compactness that helps combination play can support counter-pressing. The trade-off is clear: when the first pressure is beaten, space can appear behind an ambitious structure.
The Squad Is Being Built to Serve the Football.
Como’s financial backing is part of the explanation and should not be airbrushed away. But reducing the rise to spending misses the more interesting pattern. The squad mixes high-upside technical players with selected experience, and many additions make sense inside Fàbregas’ demand for comfort on the ball, positional intelligence and the courage to receive under pressure.
Buy Upside
Nico Paz, Assane Diao, Martin Baturina, Jesús Rodríguez and Jayden Addai fit a profile built around technical ceiling and development value.
Add Control
Como’s official announcement of Luis Milla described the 31-year-old midfielder as arriving after a 10-assist La Liga season, giving a young project another organiser who understands tempo.
Keep Experience Selective
Álvaro Morata, Diego Carlos and other senior pieces can absorb pressure that would otherwise fall entirely on a rapidly developing core.
Recruit for the Idea
The strongest signings are not simply names. They give Como another carrier, receiver, connector, runner or controller inside an established playing model.
The Idea Has Players Who Can Make It Real.
Como’s official World Cup recap records three players, Nico Paz, Assane Diao and Martin Baturina, at the 2026 World Cup. That is a useful marker of how quickly the squad’s talent level has changed. Around them sits another wave of players capable of turning the club’s tactical identity into individual breakout seasons. That development-first profile also connects Como naturally to TMJ’s The Academy coverage of emerging talent.
Creator
Nico Paz
The number 10 is the cleanest symbol of Como’s technical ambition. He can receive between lines, combine around pressure and turn possession into the final pass or shot.
Vertical Threat
Assane Diao
Diao gives a possession team something it cannot manufacture through circulation alone: explosive depth, direct running and the ability to attack a defence before it resets.
Connector
Martin Baturina
Como’s World Cup recap records four starts for Baturina and a goal against England. For Como, his value is in linking phases, receiving in crowded zones and adding another technically secure decision-maker.
One-v-One Spark
Jesús Rodríguez
The Spanish winger adds dribbling and unpredictability to a system that can otherwise become highly structured. His ability to beat a defender can open a route when positional combinations stall.
New Wave
Jayden Addai
Signed from AZ on a deal through 2030, the 19-year-old winger is another bet on bravery, technique and growth. He may not need to dominate immediately to show why Como recruited him.
The Rise Is Now Measurable in European Nights.
The Champions League is not simply a reward. It is a stress test. Como will have to protect their domestic level while facing opponents better equipped to punish risky build-up, aggressive spacing and moments of transition. Rotation becomes a tactical issue. Recovery becomes a selection issue. Young players who could learn through Serie A mistakes will now make some of those decisions under European pressure. The step into continental competition also gives the project a wider place within TMJ’s Matchday coverage as those tests arrive.
That is precisely why they belong in Ones To Watch. The next stage is not about discovering whether the project is interesting. It is about discovering its ceiling.
Europe Will Test Every Connection in the Project.
1. European schedule load
The same intensity is harder to reproduce when high-level midweek matches reduce preparation and recovery time.
2. Build-up risk against elite pressure
Como’s courage in possession is a strength until an opponent can press with equal intelligence and greater speed. Europe will test whether their exits remain reliable at a higher tempo.
3. Expectation inflation
Fourth place changes the emotional baseline. A club once praised for competing can quickly be criticised for failing to repeat an exceptional season.
4. Integrating another recruitment wave
A coherent idea helps new players, but chemistry is not automatic. Too much change can blur the very relationships that made the system work.
Como Are Not a Fashionable Story Anymore. They Are a Football Test Case.
The capital made reconstruction possible. The leadership tried to turn that backing into infrastructure, data, recruitment and a global club identity. Fàbregas then gave the sporting side a recognisable language. None of those elements, by themselves, explain a fourth-place Serie A finish and a place in the Champions League.
What makes Como 1907 worth watching is the connection between the parts: an ownership reset that restored stability, Mirwan Suwarso’s attempt to make the club more systematic and outward-looking, recruitment aimed at technical upside, a coach with a clear positional model, and a young core capable of growing with the level around it. The 2026/27 season will expose every weakness in that chain. It may also prove that Como’s rise is not a moment at all, but the beginning of a new place in Italian football.
Como 1907 Questions
Who owns Como 1907?
Como 1907’s official history says SENT Entertainment Ltd. acquired the club on 4 April 2019, while the club’s About Us material describes the revival as being driven by Indonesia’s Djarum Group. The club’s own pages therefore use different descriptions, so TMJ does not treat those terms as legally interchangeable.
Who is Mirwan Suwarso?
Mirwan Suwarso is the president of Como 1907. He has publicly described the club’s use of data analysis, long-term planning and commercial development as parts of the wider rebuild, making him an important link between the ownership era and the football project led by Cesc Fàbregas.
Who is the manager of Como 1907?
Cesc Fàbregas is Como 1907’s head coach. His possession-led and positionally fluid approach has become central to the club’s sporting identity.
How do Como 1907 play?
Como generally build from a 4-2-3-1 base, using patient short passing, central overloads, width, rotations and line-breaking combinations. Without the ball, they aim to pressure aggressively and regain control quickly.
Why are Como 1907 successful?
Their rise combines stable investment, a clear coaching model, recruitment suited to that model and a growing group of technically strong young players. The important point is how those elements reinforce one another.
What stadium do Como 1907 use?
Como play their home matches at Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia in Como, beside Lake Como.
Are Como 1907 in the 2026/27 Champions League?
Yes. UEFA lists Como among the 2026/27 Champions League league-phase teams. It is the club’s first European campaign.
The Lake Gets the Photographs. The Project Has Earned the Attention.
Como’s next season is compelling because the whole project is entering unfamiliar territory at once. Fàbregas must evolve a system opponents increasingly understand, the young core must absorb European pressure, and recruitment must add depth without weakening the relationships that made the rise possible. That tension between growth and continuity is why Como 1907 are one of Europe’s most revealing teams to watch in 2026/27.
Sources And Further Reading
- Como 1907: Club history
- Como 1907: Current staff, including President Mirwan Suwarso
- Bola.com: Mirwan Suwarso interview on data, Fàbregas and Como’s strategy
- Como 1907: Mirwan Suwarso on the Como Cup and wider club vision
- Como 1907: SENT Tourism and the club’s football-travel strategy
- Como 1907: About Us, ownership and stadium
- Como 1907: 2025/26 Serie A table
- Como 1907: First European qualification, 10 May 2026
- UEFA: Como 1907 Champions League 2026/27
- Opta Analyst: How Cesc Fàbregas has Como challenging in Serie A
- Coaches’ Voice: Cesc Fàbregas tactics and style of play
- Como 1907: Current 2026/27 first-team squad
- Como 1907: Baturina, Diao and Paz at the 2026 World Cup
- Como 1907: Jayden Addai signing
- Como 1907: Luis Milla signing
Como’s rise is a story about ambition becoming structure. Continue through TMJ’s records, World Cup coverage and football archives for the wider history behind the modern game.