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History of San Siro
Construction of the stadium commenced in 1925 in the district of Milan named San Siro, with the new stadium originally named Nuovo Stadio Calcistico San Siro (San Siro New Football Stadium).[4] The idea to build a stadium in the same district as the horse racing track belonging to the man who at that time was the president of A.C. Milan, Piero Pirelli. The architects designed a private stadium only for football, without the athletics tracks which characterized Italian stadiums built with public funds.[5] The inauguration was on 19 September 1926, when 35,000 spectators saw Inter defeat Milan 6–3. Originally, the ground was home and property of A.C. Milan. Finally, in 1947, Inter, who used to play in the Arena Civica downtown,[6] became tenants and the two have shared the ground ever since. From 1948 to 1955, engineers Armando Ronca and Ferruccio Calzolari developed the project for the second extension of the stadium, which capacity was meant to increase from 50,000 to 150,000 visitors. Calzolari and Ronca proposed three additional, vertically arranged, rings of spectator rows. Nineteen spiralling ramps – each 200-meter-long – allow to access the upper ranks. In the course of the execution, the realisation of the highest of the three rings was abandoned and the number of visitors limited to 100,000.[7] On 2 March 1980 the stadium was named for Giuseppe Meazza (1910–1979), one of the most famous Milanese footballers. Two Milan derby Champions League knockout ties, with all matches taking place at San Siro, occurred in 2003 and 2005; A.C. Milan won both, and the reaction of Inter's fans to impending defeat in the latter (throwing flares and other objects at Milan players and forcing the match to be abandoned)[8] earned the club a large fine and a four-game ban on spectators attending European fixtures there the following season.[9][10][11] Apart from being used by Milan and Inter, the Italian national team also plays occasional games there.[12] It has also been used for the European Cup finals of 1965 (won by Inter) and 1970 (won by Feyenoord), and the UEFA Champions League finals of 2001 (won by FC Bayern Munich) and 2016 (won by Real Madrid).[3][13] The stadium was also used for the home leg of three UEFA Cup finals in which Inter was competing (1991, 1994, 1997) when these were played over two legs, and was also used by Juventus for their 'home' leg in 1995 as they decided against playing their biggest matches at their own Stadio delle Alpi at the time.[14][15] On each occasion apart from 1991, the second leg was played at San Siro and the winners lifted the trophy there. However, the stadium has never been selected as the host stadium since the competition changed to a single-match final format in 1997–98. San Siro did not host any final of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, but was the host stadium for the 1951 Latin Cup, a four-team event won by A.C. Milan. The city was also the venue for the 1956 edition of the Latin Cup (also won by Milan), but those matches were played at Arena Civica. The stadium underwent further renovations for the 1990 World Cup with $60 million being spent, bringing the stadium up to UEFA category four standard. As part of the renovations, the stadium became all seated, with an extra tier being added to three sides of the stadium. This entailed the building of 11 concrete towers around the outside of the stadium. Four of these concrete towers were located at the corners to support a new roof, which has distinctive protruding red girders. In 1996 inside the stadium was opened a museum about A.C. Milan and Inter's story with historical shirts, cups and trophies, shoes, art objects and souvenirs of all kinds.