Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as simply Internazionale, Inter or Inter Milan,[1] is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy and was originally founded in 1908. The club are the only side in Italian football to have spent their entire history at the top tier, where they currently play in 2007–08 as defending champions.
Internazionale, who play in black and blue striped shirts with white shorts have fifteen Serie A titles to their name; only their rivals Juventus and AC Milan have won more. Including the Coppa Italia and the Italian Super Cup, Inter have a total of 23 trophies won in Italy.
Outside of their homeland the club have also had success in European and World tournaments; they won the European Cup in two successive finals during 1963–64 and 1964–65. They have also won the UEFA Cup three times and the World Club Championship twice. The Milanese team is one of the G-14’s founding members, a group that represents eighteen of the largest and most prestigious[2] European football clubs.
Home games are played at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, also known as the San Siro. The ground, which they share with rivals AC Milan, is the largest in Italian football, with a total capacity of 85,700.[3]
History
First Inter side to win the
scudetto, in
1909–10.
The club was founded on March 9, 1908 as Internazionale FBC Milano, following a "schism" from the Milan Cricket and Football Club. A group of Italians and Swiss (Giorgio Muggiani, a painter who also designed the club's logo, Bossard, Lana, Bertoloni, De Olma, Enrico Hintermann, Arturo Hintermann, Carlo Hintermann, Pietro Dell'Oro, Ugo and Hans Rietmann, Voelkel, Maner, Wipf, and Carlo Ardussi) were unhappy about the domination of Italians in the AC Milan team, and broke away from them, leading to the creation of Internazionale. From the beginning, the club was open to foreign players and thus lived up to her founding name.
The club won its very first Scudetto (championship) in 1910 and its second in 1920. The captain and coach of the first Scudetto was Virgilio Fossati, who was killed in World War I. In 1928, during the Fascist era, the club was forced to merge with the Milanese Unione Sportiva and was renamed Ambrosiana SS Milano[4] two years later it was altered to AS Ambrosiana Milano. They wore white shirts around this time with a red cross emblazoned on it. This shirt design was inspired by the flag and coat of arms of the city of Milan (which is derived from the flag of the patron saint of Milan, St. Ambrose and dates back to the 4th century AD). By 1933 the name was changed again, this time to AS Ambrosiana Inter Milano.
Their first Coppa Italia (Italian Cup) was won in 1938-39, led by the great legend Giuseppe Meazza, for whom the San Siro stadium is officially named, and a fifth league championship followed in 1940, despite an injury to Meazza. After the end of World War II the club re-emerged under a name close to their original one; Internazionale FC Milano, which they have kept ever since.
[edit] La Grande Inter
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Following the war, Inter won its sixth championship in 1953 and the seventh in 1954. Following these titles, Inter was to enter the best years of its history, affectionately known as the era of La Grande Inter (The Great Inter). During this magnificent period, with Helenio Herrera as head coach, the club won 3 league championships in 1963, 1965 and 1966. The most famous moments during this decade also include Inter's 2 back-to-back European Cup wins. In 1964, Inter won the first of those tournaments, playing against the famous Spanish club Real Madrid. The next season, playing in their home stadium, the San Siro, they defeated two-time former champion, Benfica.
Following the golden era of the 1960s, Inter managed to win their eleventh league title in 1971 and their twelfth in 1980. Inter were defeated for the second time in five years in the final of the European Cup, going down 0-2 to Johan Cruijff's Ajax Amsterdam in 1972. During the 1970s and the 1980s, Inter also added two to its Coppa Italia tally, in 1977-78 and 1981-82.
Led by the German trio of Andreas Brehme, Jürgen Klinsmann and Lothar Matthäus, Inter captured the 1989 Serie A championship and the Italian Supercup to open the following season.
[edit] Dark times
The 1990s was a period of disappointment. Whilst their great rivals AC Milan and Juventus were achieving success both domestically and in Europe, Inter were left behind, with some mediocre positions in the standings, their worst coming in 1993-94 when they finished just 1 point from relegation. Nevertheless, they achieved some European success with 3 UEFA Cup victories in 1991, 1994 and 1998.
With Massimo Moratti's takeover from Ernesto Pellegrini in 1995 Inter were promised more success with many high profile signings like Ronaldo, Christian Vieri and Hernán Crespo, with Inter twice breaking the world record transfer fee in this period.[citation needed] 19.5 mln € for Ronaldo from FC Barcelona in 1997 and 31 mln € for Christian Vieri from Lazio in 1999. However the 1990s remained a decade of disappointment and is the only decade in Inter's history in which they did not win a single Italian Serie A championship. For Inter fans it was difficult to find who in particular was to blame for the troubled times and this led to some icey relationships from the president to the managers and even to some individual players.
Inter chairman Massimo Moratti later became a target of the fans especially when he sacked the much loved coach Luigi Simoni after only a few games into the 1998/99 season, after having just received Italian manager of the year award 1998 the day before Massimo Moratti decided to end his contract. In the 1998/99 season Inter failed to qualify for any European competition for the first time in almost 10 years, finishing in a poor eighth place.
In the 1999/00 season Massimo Moratti made some major changes, marking once again some high profile signings. A major coup for Inter was the appointment of former Juventus manager Marcello Lippi. Moreover, Inter were seen by the majority of the fans and press to have finally put together a winning formula. Other signings included Italian and French legends Angelo Peruzzi and Laurent Blanc together with other former Juventus players Christian Vieri and Vladimir Jugovic. Inter were also seen to have an advantage in this season as they had no European "distraction". Once again they failed to win the elusive Scudetto. However they did manage to come close to their first domestic success since 1989 when they reached the Coppa Italia final only to be defeated by Lazio allowing them to win the Scudetto and domestic cup double.
The following season another disaster struck, Inter impressed in the Supercoppa Italia match against Lazio and took the lead through new signing Robbie Keane however, they lost 4-3. Overall though they were looking good for the season that was about to start. What followed was another embarrassment as they were eliminated in the preliminary round of the Champions League to Swedish club Helsingborgs IF. Alvaro Recoba was given the opportunity to equal the tie with a last minute penalty he missed hitting the post and Inter found themselves back to square one as. Marcello Lippi the manager at the time was sacked after only a few games into the season. Throughout this period Inter suffered the mocking of their neighbours AC Milan, Milan were having success both domestically and in Europe. Also throughout this period suffered endless defeats to AC Milan including a 6-0 defeat in 2000/01 season. Marco Tardelli, chosen to replace Lippi, failed to improve results, and is remembered by Inter fans as the manager that lost 6-0 the city derby to AC Milan in the 2000/01 season. Other members of the Inter "family" during this period that suffered were the likes of Christian Vieri and Fabio Cannavaro, both of whom had their restaurants in Milan vandalised after defeats against AC Milan.
Inter fans protests throughout this period went from the vandalism to banners being displayed in the stadium against certain players. In some cases fans organised for sections of the stadium to be empty for entire matches, mainly the Curva Nord. Another "protest" that has been debated was during the AC Milan vs Inter UEFA Champions League semi-final in 2005. Fans from the curva nord stopped the match by throwing flares onto the pitch after a Esteban Cambiasso goal was disallowed.
Nevertheless, every year with the all the new signings and new coaches Inter were always deemed as favourites for the championship. This led to a popular AC Milan chant against Inter "Luglio Agosto" (July and August); this was because during the summer months according to the press Inter had won the championship before it had even began only for them to crumble when it counted.
In 2002 not only did Inter manage to make it to the Uefa cup semi-finals they were also only 45 minutes away from capturing the Scudetto when they needed to maintain a one goal advantage over SS Lazio at Rome's Olimpico stadium. This was the last match of the season and Inter were top of the Serie A table at kick off however a defeat would see Juventus who were second or even AS Roma in third place take the title from them. From this some SS Lazio fans were actually openly supporting Inter during this match as an Inter victory would prevent their bitter rivals AS Roma from winning the championship.
Inter were 2-1 up after only 24 minutes. SS Lazio equalised during first half injury time and then scored two more goals in the second half to clinch victory that eventually saw Juventus win the championship after their 2-0 victory away to Udinese.
2002/03 saw Inter take a respectable second place and also managed to make it to the 2003 Champions League semi finals against their bitter rivals AC Milan. Being tied 1-1 with AC Milan, Inter lost on away goals rule. It was another disappointement but they were finally on the right track.
However, once again Massimo Moratti's patience got the better of him, Hernan Crespo was sold after just one season, and Hector Cuper was fired after only a few games. Alberto Zaccheroni stepped in, a life long Inter fan but also the man who was in charge of SS Lazio's 4-2 victory over Inter in 2002, the fans were sceptical. Zaccheroni brought nothing new to the side, apart from two fantastic wins over Juventus 3-1 in Turin and 3-2 at the San Siro the season was again nothing special. They were embarrassingly eliminated from the Champions league in the first round finishing 3rd in their group. Furthermore, they only managed to scrape back into the Champions League by finishing in 4th place by only a point over Parma A.C.. Inter's only saving grace in 2003/04 was the arrival of Dejan Stankovic and Adriano Leite Ribeiro in January 2004 both solid players that filled the gap that was left by the departures of Hernan Crespo and Clarence Seedorf
[edit] Resurrection
On June 15, 2005, Inter won the Coppa Italia, defeating AS Roma in the two-legged final 3-0 on aggregate (1-0 win in Milan and 2-0 win in Rome) and followed that up on 20 August 2005, by winning the Supercoppa Italiana after an extra-time 1-0 victory against original 04-05 Serie A champions Juventus (before being stripped of this title). This Super Cup win was Inter's first since 1989, coincidentally the same year since Inter last won the Scudetto before 2006. On 11 May 2006, Inter retained their Coppa Italia trophy by once again, defeating AS Roma with a 4-1 aggregate victory (A 1-1 scoreline in Rome and a 3-1 win at the Giuseppe Meazza, San Siro).
Inter were awarded the 2005-06 Serie A championship as they were the highest placed side in the season's final league table after points were stripped from Juventus and AC Milan - both sides involved in the match fixing scandal that year. On 14 July 2006, The Italian Federal Appeal Commission found Serie A clubs Juventus, Lazio, Fiorentina, Reggina and AC Milan guilty of match-fixing and charged the 5 clubs with their respective punishments, (although all charges were later reduced in some capacity). So with the confirmed relegation of Juventus to Serie B (for the first ever time in their history) and the 8-point deduction for city rivals AC Milan, Inter became favorites to retain their Serie A title for the upcoming 2006-07 Serie A season.
During the season, Inter went on a record-breaking run of 17 consecutive victories in Serie A, starting on September 25 2006 with a 4-1 home victory over Livorno, and ending on February 28, 2007, after a 1-1 draw at home to Udinese. The 5-2 away win at Catania on February 25 2007 broke the original record of 15 matches held by both Bayern Munich & Real Madrid from the "Big 5" (the top flight leagues in England, Italy, Spain, France & Germany). The run lasted for almost 5 months and holds among the best in European league football, with just Benfica (29 wins), Celtic (25 wins) and PSV Eindhoven (22 wins) bettering the run. Inter's form dipped a little as they scored 0-0 and 2-2 draws against relegation-battlers Reggina and slumping Palermo (respectively), the latter game featuring a second-half comeback after Palermo went up 2-0 at halftime. They could not keep their invincible form near the end of the season as well, as they lost their first game of the domestic season to Roma in the San Siro 3-1 thanks to two late Roma goals. Inter had enjoyed an unbeaten Serie A run for just under a year.
On April 22, 2007 Inter were crowned Serie A champions for the 2nd consecutive season after defeating Siena 2-1 at Stadio Artemio Franchi. Italian World Cup winning defender Marco Materazzi scored both goals in the 18th and 60th minute, with the latter being a penalty. This is the first time Inter have won the Scudetto, on merit alone, since 1989. In addition, within hours after clinching their 2nd consecutive league title, the club confirmed head coach Roberto Mancini had signed a 4-year extension to his current contract, with an option to extend it for a further 12 months, which, if extended, would expire at the end of the 2011-12 campaign.[5] Inter president Massimo Moratti claimed that this contractual agreement was made "some time ago".[6]
[edit] Other historical information
Inter has never been relegated from the Italian top flight in their entire history, which dates back all the way to 1908; a fact Nerazzurri fans hold in high regard. By comparison, AC Milan has been relegated twice despite winning two more Scudetti. As of 2007, following Juventus' relegation to Serie B for the 2006-07 season following the "Calciopoli" scandal Inter remain the only Italian club that holds this honour, and its century in the top flight (counting the upcoming season) is one of the longest unbroken runs of any club in the world.
The current president and owner of Inter is Massimo Moratti. His father, Angelo Moratti, was the president of Inter during the club's golden era of the 1960s. Massimo, trying to emulate his father's great success, has spent an enormous amount of money in his time at the club to sign some of the world's best players in past and present generations, in an effort to win the Scudetto for the first time since 1989. Due to Inter's failure to win major silverware during most of his premiership, there was frequent criticism of Moratti by Interista. Massimo initially planned to put the club up for sale at the end of the 2005-06 season, but cancelled such plans after Inter was awarded the Serie A championship.
[edit] Players
As of 8 September, 2007[7]
For all transfers and loans pertaining to Inter for the current season, please see; 2007–08 transfers.
