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Despite its reckless use these days one needs to emphasize the phrase, Milan derby is ‘unlike anything else’. When the two play, it’s not the neighbourhoods or locations that draw a line between them but families. Filippo Inghazi inspired the last Champions League title win for AC Milan. He had this to say of his brother Simon, who is the current head coach of Inter, “I’m happy for him and he deserves to make this semifinal but, I am tied to Milan and will always be their supporter.”
The clubs have literally played under the same roof since 1947. And just like the man after whom the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza was named, the two have begrudgingly shared familiar names on the back of their shirts. Unlike most intense football rivalries, where a player going from one side to another, has been a subject of nothing less than cold-blooded betrayal and death threats, the Milan teams and their faithful have fashioned the swaps. Almost as seamlessly as any other piece of trendsetting clothing that comes out of the world’s fashion capital.
Roberto Baggio, Christian Vieri, Hernan Crespo, Clarence Seedorf, Andrea Pirlo, Mario Balotelli, the original Ronaldo, the list of those who’ve worn the red as well as the blue of Milan is long and glorious. And with that list, has come what the kids these days on social media term as football heritage.
The reflection of European football in the mirror is incomplete without Milan. No other city, apart from Madrid, houses more of the continent’s elite club competition titles.
The older of the two flexes seven as opposed to its sibling’s three. The race between the two has continued from the beginning. Milan had won three league titles before the split. By the time their fourth came in 1951, Inter had won five of their own. Nereo Rocco’s Milan becoming the first Italian team to win the European Cup in 1963 was only followed by the Helenio Herrera-managed Inter lifting the trophy the next year. Two seasons back, Antonio Conte’s Inter would end the nine-year Scudetto run of Juventus. Stefano Pioli and Milan dethroned them the next year. The two are inseparable, and yet not one.
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Much like the reputation of their city, the football clubs have synthesized trends that have gone on to revolutionize the sport and later, tutored to its new entrants. While Milan roped in the three vital cogs (Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard) in the machinery that was the greatest Dutch national team of all time, Inter looked towards the German-engineered trio of Lothar Matthaus, Andreas Brehme and later Jurgen Klinsmann. Carlo Ancelotti’s famous midfield diamond did the trick for Milan in their last Champions League podium finish in 2007. Pupil to the Arrigo Sacchi, whose free-flowing attacking football shined bright in some of Milan’s greatest years, Ancelotti not only imbibed the on-field teachings of his former coach but also inspired a rich emphasis on man management.
Jose Mourinho at Inter did what no other Italian coach had done before or has done since. Win a treble. A night after he sprinted across a packed Camp Nou after his side’s 3-1 aggregate win in the Champions League semifinal, The Guardian headlines read, ‘In José Mourinho Inter finally have a true heir to Helenio Herrera’. The Portuguese had laid a profound display of of the famous Catenaccio, an overly defensive style of football based on the five-defender formation. One that was instituted at the club by Inter’s first European Cup-winning manager all those decades back. One that led to their third title in 2010 at the Santiago Bernabeu. Milan had completed 10. It was only fitting that in their search of La Decima, Real Madrid hired Mourinho and Ancelotti as their next two managers.
A familiar stage
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“This club is used to these moments, these emotions. It knows how to be a protagonist,” Milan head coach Stefano Pioli said on the eve of his side’s Champions League semifinal first leg against a familiar foe. It’s taken some time, but the city of Milan is finally ready to brace itself for the most exciting two-legged affair in the annual European football calendar.
When Juventus were on their Serie A winning streak from 2011-12 to 2019-20, the Old Lady of Italy looked unstoppable. The once-heralded Nerazzurri and the Rossoneri were out of the picture, struggling to even secure UCL spots at times. Since Conte and Co won the Scudetto in the Covid-enduring season, the power seems to have shifted back to the Italian capital. That year, Milan finished second. Next season, they’d swap places at the top of the points table. Neither of them could pip past Napoli this year. A major reason? Letting go of players who were pivotal to their success.
For Inter, their financial troubles led to star striker Romelu Lukaku and coach Antonio Conte leaving soon after securing them the title. Meanwhile, AC Milan sold off midfielder Franck Kessie to Barcelona in the summer of 2022.
AC Milan supporters cheer during a Serie A soccer match between AC Milan and Lazio, at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Saturday, May 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Coming to the Champions League, the recent form of the Milan clubs are checkered at best with Inter having last featured in the final four back when they last won the title in 2010, and Milan in 2007 when they last lifted the trophy.
During this timeline, Inter has played in the competition six times, getting eliminated from the group stage thrice (2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21), being knocked out of the Round of 16 on two occasions (2011/12 and 2021/22), and reaching the quarterfinals once in 2010/11. The blue and blacks of Milan failed to qualify for six seasons from 2012/13 to 2017/18.
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The seven-time winners on the other hand have been eliminated from the Round of 16 five times (2007/08, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2012/13 and 2013/14), and have reached the quarterfinals only once in 2011/12. In between, Milan failed to qualify for the competition for seven straight seasons, making their return in the aforementioned 2021/22 season, where they were promptly dumped out of the group stage.
Being fourth and fifth in the points table, a spot in next season’s Champions League is far from guaranteed for at least one of these two gargantuan clubs. No pressure, but a lot’s at stake come a two-legged semifinal at San Siro. The last time the two squared off in the competition back in 2005, the tie was brought to an end not by a whistle, but flares. Loads of them.
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Referee Markus Merk was forced to abandon the game in the 72nd minute after projectiles were thrown down the stands from Inter’s Curva Nord Ultras, who’d had too much of the 0-5 aggregate scoreline. Red smoke took over the green turf at the Giuseppe Meazza. Milan goalkeeper Dida would be hit by one of the flares, leaving a burn mark on his back and black hole on his famous green shirt. Milan’s Ultras would retort with shouts of ‘Idiots!’ from the opposing stands.
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Amid the chaos, Inter’s Marco Materazzi rested his hand on Milan’s Rui Costa’s shoulders, the two gazing at the red backdrop of smoke. A frame of epic proportions. Ahead of the game on Wednesday, Stafano Rellandin of Reuters, who managed to capture the frame all those years back tells The Gentleman Ultra, “When I look at that picture, I’m reminded that football is the most beautiful game in the world.” The two Milan clubs have surely done their bit.
