Marco Materazzi of Inter (left) and Rui Costa of AC Milan
April 12, 2005: The two main soccer teams from Milan, Italy face each other in a Quarterfinal tie of the UEFA Champions League. It becomes the most famous game in Italy's most famous sports rivalry.
Associazione Calcio Milan -- "Calcio" is the Italian name for the sport that Americans call "soccer," but most of the world calls "football" -- or AC Milan, or simply "Milan," were founded in 1899. With their red and black stripes, they are known in Italian as the Rossoneri.
Football Club Internazionale Milano, or Inter Milan, or simply "Inter," were founded in 1908, when some members left AC Milan in a dispute. With their black and blue stripes, they are known as the Nerazzurri. The rivalry between these teams is known as the Derby della Madonnina, after one of the symbols of the city of Milan, a statue of the Virgin Mary atop the city's cathedral, the Duomo.
AC Milan built a stadium in the San Siro neighborhood in 1926. They have played there ever since, except for 1941 to 1945, when Italian football was suspended due to World War II. They sold the stadium to the City of Milan in 1935. Inter have played there since 1947. In 1980, the stadium was renamed Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, after the Inter star who helped the Italy national team win the World Cup in 1934 and 1938. Despite this name, most people still call it "The San Siro." At 80,018, it is easily the largest stadium in Italy.
Through the 2021-22 season, AC Milan and have each won Italy's national league, Serie A, 19 times. Only Juventus, of Turin, with 36, have won it more times. As is frequently the case in various sports, "Juve," wearing white and black stripes, the Bianconeri, as the most successful team in their league, are the most-loved team, but also the most-hated, and there are more people who hate them. As intense as the Milan-Inter rivalry is, their fans will team up to oppose Juve.
In the 1960s, with both teams using a defensive style called "catenaccio" (meaning "padlock"), the Milan clubs not only dominated Italian football, but made their mark continent-wide: AC Milan won the European Cup, the tournament known since 1992 as the UEFA Champions League, in 1963 and 1969. Inter won it in 1964 and 1965, and were runners-up in 1967 and 1972.
AC Milan fans in the south end, the Curva Sud
But while Milan were able to have the occasional European breakthrough over the rest of the 20th Century, Inter found it difficult, though they did win the secondary European tournament, the UEFA Cup (now the UEFA Europa League), 3 times in the 1990s.
Internazionale Milano fans in the north end, the Curva Nord
In 2005, both teams reached the Quarterfinals of the Champions League. So both the "home leg" and the "away leg," for each team, would be held at the San Siro. Milan were the hosts for the 1st leg, and won, 2-0, on goals by Dutch centreback Jaap Stam and Ukrainian forward Andriy Shevchenko.
Six days later, the teams played the 2nd leg at the San Siro, in front of 82,734 fans. Inter needed to score 2 goals, without Milan scoring an "away goal," to send the game to extra time. Any goal by Milan, and even scoring 3 goals would not have helped Inter, as Milan would have won on "away goals."
The talent on the pitch was staggering. For Inter: Italian defender Marco Materazzi, Croatian defender Siniša Mihajlović, Argentine defender Javier Zanetti, Serbian midfielder Dejan Stanković, Argentine midfielders Juan Sebastián Verón and Esteban Cambiasso, and Italian forward Christian Vieri.
For Milan: Brazilian goalkeeper Dida, Italian defenders Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Nesta, Brazilian defender Cafu, Dutch defender Jaap Stam, Georgian defender Kakha Kaladze, Italian midfielders Andrea Pirlo (who had previously played for Inter) and Gennaro Gattuso, Brazilian midfielder Kaká, Dutch midfielder Clarence Seedorf, Portuguese midfielder Rui Costa, Argentine forward Hernán Crespo, and Ukrainian forward Andriy Shevchenko.
The game was fairly even for the 1st half-hour, but Shevchenko scored in the 30th minute. That made it 3-0 Milan on aggregate, and Inter were pretty much done, with the rest of the game a seeming formality. Not that they didn't try, but Dida put on a masterclass in goal; while Cafu, Nesta, Staam and Maldini were so tight in defense, it brought back memories of the catenaccio defense of both Milan teams of the 1960s.
But the individual match would not end benignly. In the 71st minute, Cambiasso thought he had scored an equalizer (for the game, though not for the tie), but the referee, Markus Merk of Germany, waved it off. He ruled that Julio Cruz, Inter's Argentine forward, had fouled Dida.
This was in front of the Curva Nord (North Stand), where Inter's most fervent fans stand (and rarely sit). Milan's equivalent are in the Curva Sud (South Stand). Those Inter fans began throwing flares onto the pitch. One hit Dida on the shoulder, then bounced up and off his head. He went down like a ton of bricks. When he got up, he held his shoulder, and walked off the field.
Merk called Captains Maldini and Zanetti over, and told them the game was abandoned and forfeited to the visiting team, since the home team could not control their fans and keep the pitch playable. Officially, the game ended 3-0 to Milan, and the tie 5-0 to Milan.
Zanetti and Veron, who had seen plenty of displays like this in their native Argentina -- in spite of it being a Spanish-speaking country on a mostly-Spanish-speaking continent, their largest ethnic group is Italians -- and assisted the firemen in removing the flares. A photographer took the famous photo above, of Materazzi and Rui Costa watching the smoke from the flares. It wasn't quite Pelé and Bobby Moore swapping shirts at the 1970 World Cup, but it was a sign that one of the roughest "derbies" in the sport could still have some sportsmanship, even at its worst moment to date.
UEFA fined Inter, and ordered them to play their next 4 European games behind closed doors: Everybody necessary for the operation of the stadium during the match would be admitted, but no fans.
It has been alleged that Dida was never the same since that incident, especially in light of losing the penalty phase of the Champions League Final to Liverpool. However, 2 years later, in 2007, Milan reversed that result, beating Liverpool in the Final, with Dida keeping a clean sheet until the 89th minute.
Milan won Serie A in 2011, then went into a down period. Although they won Serie A again in 2022, they have never again been to a CL Final. Inter won the CL in 2010, becoming the 1st Italian team to win a "European Treble": Serie A, the Coppa Italia, and the Champions League. But they have never been back to the CL Final. (UPDATE: They got back in 2023, losing to Manchester City.)
In 2019, AC Milan announced plans for a new stadium, next-door to the San Siro, to be home to both teams. The plan fell through, as the city government intends to keep the stadium open through the 2026 Winter Olympics, at which point the oldest parts of the stadium will be 100 years old. The current plan is for a shared stadium, away from the San Siro area.
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April 12, 2005 was a Tuesday. There was 1 other Champions League Quarterfinal that day: Bayern Munich beat Chelsea, 3-2 at the Olympiastadion in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. However, Chelsea, of West London, won the tie on aggregate, 6-5. In the Semifinals, Liverpool beat Chelsea, and Milan beat Dutch team PSV Eindhoven. In the Final, Liverpool came from behind to beat Milan, a story worthy of its own entry.
The NHL team owners locked their players out, and Commissioner Gary Bettman canceled the entire 2004-05 season, so there were no games on this day.
These Major League Baseball games were played:
* The Washington Nationals beat the Atlanta Braves, 4-3 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium in Atlanta). Two days later, the Nationals, who had been the Montreal Expos from 1969 to 2004, played their 1st home game in Washington.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 7-6 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.
* The Florida Marlins beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-2 at Dolphins Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-2 at Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-4 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-1 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.
* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 13-8 at Ameriquest Field (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.
* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-2 at Chase Field in Phoenix.
* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 9-8 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The Giants led 8-5 going into the bottom of the 9th, but Armando Benitez melted down, as he so often did, until Milton Bradley singled home the winning run. Barry Bonds did not play for the Giants in this game.
* And the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Oakland Athletics, 5-2 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the McAfee Coliseum).
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