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AC
Milan's glorious history dates back to the
night of the 16th of December, 1899 when Englishman Alfred
Edwards formed and later became president of the newly founded
Milan Cricket and Football Club. The location was the Fiaschetteria
Toscana in via Berchet. The club was well frequented by English
sportsmen and the top people of Milanese culture where they
would discuss their team over cocktails at the American Bar.
Till the breakaway on the 9th of March 1908 which led to the
formation of rivals Inter, Milan FC had already won three
Italian League titles. In 1926 Pietro Pirelli, a frequenter
of the American Bar, decided to put his money into Milan's
new stadium, the San Siro. However, Milan's English origins
were out of favour with the Italian Fascist movement of the
time and Milan had to wait till after World War II to start
to recover. The purchase of players like Gren, Liedholm and
Nordhal (Gre-No-Li) helped Milan back to the top of Italian
football.
Between the years 1948 and 1966 Milan managed to finish in the top three of the
Serie A each year but one, also managing to win four Serie A titles. Milan imported
some top football stars to help them achieve this. Uruguayan Juan Schiaffino and
Brasilian Jose Altafini were two of these stars. Milan managed to reach the final
of the European Cup in 1958 only to lose 3-2 to the great Real Madrid. In 1963
Milan managed to reach the final again. This time Milan won 2-1 with both goals
scored by Altafini, after Eusebio had put Benfica in front. In this team there
was a figure head which was to dominate Milan's team for 15 years. His name was
Gianni Rivera. Alongside him were other great players who were to influence the
future of Italian soccer, Cesare Maldini, father of Paolo Maldini, and Giovanni
Trapattoni, who would win the scudetto as manager for seven times. Manager of
this team was Nereo Rocco who was sometimes more of a father then a manager to
most players. In 1968 Milan won their first Cup Winner's Cup beating Hamburg of
Germany 2-0. In 1969 Milan became Euro champions again, this time beating Johan
Cruyff's Ajax 4-1 in a one sided match with Italian forward Pierino Prati scoring
three goals. This
team would then go on to win the World Club Championship beating Estudiantes with
an aggregate score of 4-2 in two matches. In 1979 Rivera's last season at Milan
would bring to the club the much desired tenth league title and hence the honour
of wearing the star on their jersey, an honour only shared by three clubs till
this very day. Then came Milan darkest period. Under President Felice Colombo
Milan were relegated to Serie B for match rigging. After playing themselves back
to the Serie A, Milan went back down to the Serie B under President Giuseppe Farina
who fled to South Africa with a fortune of players money. Silvio Berlusconi appeared
on the scene in 1986 in a spectacular but difficult takeover of the club. The
first thing he did was to heavily invest in the club's youth structures and in
Milanello, Milan's training grounds, making them the envy of every Italian and
European club. He also courageously entrusted his nearly 40 million dollar investment
into the hands of an unknown manager by the name of Arrigo Sacchi. Berlusconi's
emphasis was in developing Milan's team into a business structure, full of innovative
ideas and managerial style of development. Sacchi quickly invested the money entrusted
to him to purchase Dutch trio Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard
who together with youth prodigies like Franco Baresi, Mauro Tassotti and Paolo
Maldini and some other good signings like Roberto Donadoni and Carlo Ancelotti
turned Milan into an unstoppable machine, even pipping Maradona's Napoli out of
a league title in 1988. Milan crushed Steau Bucharest in the European Cup final
4-0 after thrashing Real Madrid 5-0 in the semi final. However, the work rate
involved in Sacchi's hard pressing game began to take its toll and after winning
another European Cup in 1990 with a solitary Rijkaard goal against Benfica, Sacchi
took over the Italian national team. Milan new coach was Fabio Capello, who at
the time was a manager in one of Berlusconi's companies. In his first season Capello
won the Serie A title without losing a single game, starting an historic unbeaten
run which was to last an incredible 58 games. Milan went on to win three consecutive
titles from 1992-1994 with big scores of 7-3, 5-3, 5-1 and 8-2. Marco van Basten
became Italy's all time higest scoring foreigner before injuring his ankle which
prematurely ended his career. At the end of this run Milan had to face Cruyff's
Barcellona in the European Cup final in Athens. Cruyff was overconfident saying
that Barcellona would tear apart Milan after managing to score three times as
many goals as Milan had did in thei league. Contrary to all expectations, Milan
went out on an all out attack and thrashed Barcellona 4-0 with great performances
by Frenchman Marcel Desailly and Montenegrin Dejan Savicevic. The
next European Cup final however, proved evasive and Milan lost 1-0 to Ajax, also
due to a number of missing stars in the final. From here on Milan went into lethargy
and have not recovered since. Capello was replaced by Uruguayan Oscar Tabarez,
again by Arrigo Sacchi and Capello was again given the manager's driving seat.
None of these changes have been effective. In the hands of new man Alberto Zaccheroni,
Milan have incredibly managed to win the scudetto on his first opportunity. The
only managers in the history books that managed to do this were the now legendary
Nereo Rocco, Arrigo Sacchi and Fabio Capello.
Zaccheroni
lasted till middway 2001 with the duo of Cesare Maldini /
Mauro Tassotti taking over. The highest achievement of this
duo was the 6-0 thrashing of Inter, which will certainly go
down in Milan's history books. At this time Milan were already
on the look out for a new manager in Fatih Terim. The Turk
brought with him some good football. However, this manager
only lasted a couple of months after an inconsistent string
of results Carlo Ancelotti took over.
The year
2003 was Ancelotti's year. He was entrusted with players like
Nesta, Pirlo, Seedorf and Rivaldo which added quality to the
team and the club under his guidance went on to win two trophies
the Champions League, where they met rivals Inter in the semi-final
and then Juventus in the final and three days the Coppa Italia
which had been missing from the trophy room from 1977. Milan
also finished third in the Serie A. Ancelotti continued his
fine run at Milan by winning the 17th Scudetto. He is the
first ever manager to have won both as a player and as a manager
for the same team. The 17th title was also Maldini's and Costacurta's
7th scudetto. It's now 2007 and Milan manage to win the Champions
League for the 7th time after being penalised in the league
with a points deduction. It was maldini's 5th triumph which
takes him to legendary status. Milan also win the 2007 Super
Cup beating Sevilla of Spain 3-1 with new captain Massimo
Ambrosini lifting his first trophy.
On the
16th December, 2007, Milan 108th birthday, Milan lift the
World Club Champions Cup in Yokohama beating home side Urawa
Red Diamonds in the semi final and beating Boca Junions 4-2
in the final. This meant that Milan are now the most decorated
club on the planet.
Serie
A Champions: 1901, 1906, 1907, 1951, 1955, 1957, 1959,
1962, 1968, 1979, 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2004
Coppa Italia
winners: 1967, 1972, 1973, 1977, 2003
European Champions: 1963, 1969, 1989, 1990, 1994,
2003, 2007
Cup
Winners Cup winners: 1968, 1973 
Intercontinental Champions: 1969, 1989, 1990,
World Club Championship: 2007
European Super
Cup: 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003, 2007
Italian Super Cup: 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, 2004 |