Giuseppe Meazza scored 13 times in Milan derbies during his illustrious career, netting goals for both teams. The split is a little one sided, with the Inter legend bagging a dozen for them and one for AC Milan over his career. You could be forgiven for thinking his involvement in the derby ended with his retirement in 1947, or even his death in 1979, but Giuseppe Meazza is present at every single Milan derby, with the San Siro being named after him following his death.
That association appears to be in jeopardy going forward, with the iconic stadium that bears his name set for demolition. Even with a passing interest in Italian football you can’t have escaped the news that Inter and AC Milan have now purchased the stadium from the municipality with the intention of knocking it down and building a state-of-the-art modern arena to rival the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Wembley and even arch rivals’ Juventus’ Allianz Stadium.
Romantic football fans – such as I – are already penning wistful goodbyes to this icon of a golden age of Serie A football, when the Premier League could only dream of attracting the world’s biggest stars like Italy did. The San Siro, sorry Giuseppe Meazza San Siro, still stands out as one of the most recognisable silhouettes in world football. Every time I get off Tram 16 I’m blown away by the imposing red steel structures, the spiral staircases for fans and the sheer scale of the stadium. But even I can’t deny its flaws.
No one appears to be mentioning the crumbling concrete. The fact the stadium shakes when Inter declare that anyone not jumping is a “Milanista pezzo di Merda” (don’t Google). The women’s toilets – my daughter tells me – consist of a hole in the floor to unceremoniously squat over and the presence of only four bars for the entire upper tier is a joke when there must be 20,000 people looking for a half time pint. Yes, the stadium is a little like Giuseppe Meazza himself during his second spell at Inter in his last year playing. It’s still him, and he’s still your hero, but he isn’t quite fit for purpose anymore.
And that brings us on to his presence in the Milan derby. Long considered a bucket list game for European fans, days at the San Siro are now officially numbered. Things in Italy don’t tend to move quickly, and my experience in the construction industry teaches me that deadlines and dates announced at the start of a project quickly go out the window when the work starts. However, the San Siro being stripped of the 2027 UEFA Champions League final and with Italy hosting the 2032 UEFA European Championships jointly with Turkey, there is an added impetus to cut through the bureaucracy and get the job done.
In theory, there are only 10 derbies left to be held at the San Siro – assuming there are no Champions League or Coppa Italia meetings. That will take us to the 2030/31 season. That’s only 10 opportunities for the “bucket list groundhopper” to get this rite of passage ticked off their list. This is something that’s become clear when I’ve checked my DMs on Instagram. Yes, The Calcio Blog has carved out an unintentional niche amongst the “influencer” circuit of Italian football to become the travel advice channel, and since the announcement was made that the San Siro will soon be reduced to rubble, this is the game most requested by fans.
I only attended my first derby last season as it goes, with tickets not particularly hard to come by. They weren’t even that hard this season as the sale date was days before the announcement of the stadium sale. The Derby della Madonnina usually sells out, but not before making it all the way to general sale windows, so if you’re quick you can get in. It wasn’t even that expensive, considering the magnitude of game, we paid €65 for a ticket last season. Unfortunately for this Inter fan, Milan prevailed in the last minute and Inter lost having previously won six in a row. Football fans believe in jinxes, so I’ll never attend another derby.
There have been 244 derbies in all competitions since Internazionale broke away from the Milan Cricket and Football Club in 1908 because of a dispute over the involvement of – you guessed it – international players. With a minimum of ten derbies remaining, Milan trail Inter 91-82 in terms of wins, so they could end the San Siro era ahead.
It would be more fitting if the record was shared when the time comes. The clubs tend to share a lot, including most of the stadium on derby days. It isn’t uncommon to see Milan fans in large swathes when it’s their “away” game. Families, friend groups, marriages, workplaces are all split between the two clubs in this city. Largely the derby passes without incident, the two Ultra groups long ago agreed to a non-belligerence pact around the derby – claiming that turning their beloved city into a warzone would be in no ones interest. In fact, both Ultra groups come together in the build up to the derby to raise money for homeless shelters and food banks in Milan. That’s not to say this is a “friendly derby”, there’s just a general “acceptance” that any war would be ongoing and not restricted to matchdays. Collaboration is done begrudgingly.
Players are often shared between the clubs as well, with some all time greats representing both teams. Christian Vieri, Andrea Pirlo, Clarence Seedorf, Hernan Crespo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo to name but a few.
Whatever happens to the San Siro and the new arena that replaces it, it’s hard to see any of those names adorning the wall. But as the clubs try and drag themselves and their spiritual home into the modern world, I like the sound of the Mario Balotelli San Siro Stadium…
There is no ‘crumbling concrete’. Sure, some of the amenities are a bit shabby, but there is nothing essentially wrong with this building that couldn’t be rectified, reconfigured, or redesigned. If an architect can’t find a way around all this then they’re not much of an architect. But they don’t want to – they crave the novelty of a new build that’s all style over substance. Ten years down the line, they’ll be back to square one, with some dated folly on their hands that they won’t have looked after.