FIFA: The Classic: AC Milan-Inter Milan As has been the case every year since 18 October 1908, Milan will soon be engulfed by a tidal wave of football fever surrounding the 'derby de la Madonnina'.
Under the protection of the little gold Madonna who watches over all of her citizens from atop the spire of the Duomo di Milano, city rivals Inter and AC Milan are about to go head to head once again.
These deadly rivals will meet at the San Siro for the 264th edition of the derby, with Inter, last season's champions by default, sitting pretty at the top of Serie A level on points with Palermo. That said, Milan have already made up the eight-point penalty deficit with which they started the season and are now in hot pursuit of their arch-rivals. Looming large over the match will be the shadow of Giacinto Facchetti, the legendary former Inter and Azzurri star who was still chairman of the club when he passed away last month.
Taking all competitions into consideration, AC Milan have the edge on their rivals with 103 victories in 264 derbies, compared to Inter's 88 wins and 72 draws. However, in terms of league games alone, it is Inter who shade it with 50 wins, 44 defeats and 49 draws.
The competition between these two hugely successful clubs is first and foremost a question of pride. It boils down to a culture clash of sorts, as the Football Club Internazionale Milano, informally shortened to 'Inter', was created on 9 March 1908 in the back room of the Milan restaurant L'Orologiaio (The Watchmaker) at the initiative of dissident members of the 'Milan Cricket and Football Club', the forerunner of today's AC Milan.
These members had in fact fallen out with Milan Cricket's management over the issue of opening the club's doors to foreign players at a time when a strict Italians-only rule was in force. Milan's directors decided to keep the club's name in English, but did add the Italian description "Associazone Calcio". Six months later, on 18 October 1908 at Chiasso (Switzerland), Milan won the first-ever derby 2-1.
Initially, this rivalry was essentially divided along class lines, with Inter representing the middle classes and AC Milan the proletariat. These days, however, Milan and Inter both have fans from all social backgrounds and many families are 'split' by their support for the two clubs.
The Baresi BrothersThe most famous example is without doubt that of the Baresi family. The eldest son, Giusseppe Baresi, spent his entire career at Inter, making 392 league and 73 European Cup appearances.
His brother, the rock-solid defender Franco Baresi is a legendary figure among the Milan fraternity, with a total of 470 league and 79 European games to his name. Even today, Giuseppe runs the Nerazzurro youth academy, while Franco is vice-chairman of the Rossoneri.
Throughout the history of this rivalry, only Giuseppe Meazza, the scorer of 283 goals in 408 official matches for Inter, has really succeeded in bridging the gulf between the two communities. For after his death in 1979, the San Siro was renamed in his honour, a tribute to which AC Milan agreed despite the fierce enmity between the two clubs. Having said that, most Milanese still refer to the stadium as the San Siro, the name of the district in which it stands.
With 16 Italian titles, five Italian Cups, six UEFA Champions Leagues/European Champion Clubs' Cups, two UEFA Cup Winners' Cups, three UEFA European Supercups and three Intercontinental Cups, AC Milan's trophy cabinet is better stocked than that of their rivals, who have nevertheless accumulated 14 league titles, four Italian Cups, two European Cups, three Supercups and two Intercontinental Cups.
The impact of Lombardy's football giants on the European game was particularly spectacular in 1994, when Milan won the Champions League and Inter clinched the UEFA Cup, making the Italian fashion capital the only city to have scooped two European trophies in the same season.
The record-holder for most appearances in the Milanese derby is the indefatigable Paolo Maldini with 50 (21 wins, 18 draws and 11 defeats), a tally that will be even more difficult to beat than that of Inter's best representative, Giuseppe Bergomi, who clocked up 44 derbies. In Milan's very own clash of the titans, Inter's chief tormentor has been the Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko, who found the target 14 times in derby games: eight in the league, three in the cup and three in the Champions League.
The birth of the catenaccioThe history of Inter Milan has been marked by two personalities in particular. Under the chairmanship of Angelo Moratti, father of current chairman Massimo Moratti, Inter experienced its first heyday under the management of the charismatic Helenio Herrera, the man credited with inventing the catenaccio.
In the space of four years, between 1963 and 66, Inter swept the board (three league titles, two European Champion Clubs' Cups, two Intercontinental Cups) by relying on an ultra-defensive style of football. Inter's stars of that era, such as Sandro Mazzola, Mario Corso, Giuliano Sarti, Tarcisio Burgnich, Armando Picchi and Luis Suarez, have entered into Italian football legend in a way that Javier Zanetti and Co. can still only dream of.
AC Milan's first tastes of glory came courtesy of the magical Swedish trio of Gren, Nordahl and Liedholm, known collectively as GRE-NO-LI, ably supported by the Brazilian Jose Altafini and the Uruguayan Juan Schiaffino.
More success soon followed under the inspiration of the great Nereo Rocco, Cesare Maldini (father of Paolo), Giovanni Trapattoni, and then that of the elegant Gianni Rivera, while in more recent times, Dutch golden boys Marco van Basten, Franck Rijkaard and Ruud Gullit hauled Milan to the summit of European football.
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