U.S. Alessandria Calcio 1912
Unione Sportiva Alessandria Calcio 1912 referred to as Alessandria, is an Italian football club based in Alessandria, Piedmont. It plays in Serie C, the third tier of Italian football. Founded in 1912, Alessandria spent 13 seasons in Serie A between 1929 and 1960 and 21 in Serie B; the most successful period in the history of the team was between World War I and World War II, when it was, with Novara, Pro Vercelli and Casale, part of the so-called Quadrilatero Piemontese, which forged great players and gained important trophies. One of the most famous players who has worn the characteristic gray shirt of the team is 1969 European Footballer of the Year award-winner Gianni Rivera. With the promotion in 2009 in Lega Pro Prima Divisione, the team left a period of financial troubles, with internal problems that led the club to bankruptcy in 2003. Football arrived in Alessandria in the end of 19th century. In 1896, the Unione Pro Sport Alessandria was created, followed by the football teams of the athletic club Forza e Concordia, which wore dark-grey shirts, Forza e Coraggio, with pearl-grey shirts.
Unione Pro Sport took part in some exhibition tournaments with teams based in Turin and Genoa between 1897 and 1898. On 15 March 1898, it was invited to join the constituents of FIF took part in the first official championship qualification round and, feeling itself penalized in favor of F. B. C. Torinese and Genoa CFC, it preferred to leave and keep on participating in tournaments organized by FGNI. In 1908 Forza and Coraggio members decided to set up a team which could dispute the Italian Championship, it happened on 18 February 1912 with the foundation of Alessandria Foot Ball Club by Enrico Badò, Amilcare Savojardo and Alfredo Ratti, elected first director. The first shirts, bought from Vigor Torino, were azure, with a large vertical white stripe in the center; the team was admitted to the Promozione for the 1912–13 season gaining a promotion after a decisive match played against Vigor Torino in Novara, of which the score was 3–0. In the same year, businessman Giovanni Maino offered eleven grey shirts, similar to those worn by his famous cycling team, to Alessandria FBC.
In 1913 the team recruited the English player-coach George Arthur Smith, coming from the ranks of Genoa. C. in the "Quinquennio d'Oro" period and who became on 31 January 1915 the first Alessandria footballer wearing the national football team's jersey—soon exploded in the 1920s. In the 1914–15 season, the grey team in Piedmont was good, missing for only two points the admission to the final round. After World War I, Alessandria F. B. C. continued to improve its performances: in the 1919–20 season, it prevailed in the elimination round and lost to Genoa in the semifinals. In November 1920, FBC merged with another Alessandria team, US Alessandria, established in 1915, keeping the grey shirt and changing its name to Alessandria US. At the end of the 1920–21 season, the club gained admission to the North Italy championship semifinals after a playoff in Milan against Modena F. C.. On 10 July 1921, Alessandria US lost the chance to qualify for the Northern Italy final, losing to U. S. Pro Vercelli in a violent match bitterly contested by Alessandria: they chose to withdraw in protest after just an hour of play, after a serious head injury occurred in Carcano.
In subsequent years Alessandria U. S. continued to show excellent performances, but never succeeded in winning a championship, as the tournament was dominated by Pro Vercelli and Genoa, from Bologna CFC and Turinese teams. In 1927, after a disappointing season after which the salvation from relegation in Division I came only after a series of playouts against Pisa and Novara, came the first trophy: the Coppa CONI, won after a double final played against Casale. In the first round, trained by Carlo Carcano, defeated Livorno, Andrea Doria, Alba Rome and Napoli; that year the works for the new stadium started. Alessandria players at the time were Giovanni Ferrari, Luigi Bertolini and Adolfo Baloncieri, which in the summer of 1927 signed for Torino F. C.. In 1928 Alessandria came close to winning the championship, it was a heavy, unexpected defeat at Casale that erased the dreams of Carcano's team, for it wasn't enough to defeat Torino in the direct match to win the championship. Alessandria's Goalkeeper Curti, suspected by most of illicit activities, was soon expelled.
Furthermore, authorities heavily discredited after the "Allemandi Case", deemed it unnecessary to investigate further into the match. At the end of the 1928–29 season Alessandria was admitted to the first edition of Serie A tournament and inaugurated the new stadium. In the early 1930s, several players left the club, still tied to amateurism, to migrate to large centers. In 1936, the team, after beating Cremonese, Laz
A.C. Milan
Associazione Calcio Milan referred to as A. C. Milan or Milan, is a professional football club in Milan, founded in 1899; the club has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 1980–81 and 1982–83 seasons, in the top flight of Italian football, known as Serie A since 1929–30. A. C. Milan's 18 FIFA and UEFA trophies is the fourth highest out of any club, the most out of any Italian club. Milan has won a joint record three Intercontinental Cups and one FIFA Club World Cup, seven European Cup/Champions League titles, the UEFA Super Cup a joint record five times and the Cup Winners' Cup twice. With 18 league titles, Milan is the joint-second most successful club in Serie A, along with local rivals Internazionale and behind Juventus, they have won the Coppa Italia five times, the Supercoppa Italiana seven. Milan's home games are played at San Siro known as the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza; the stadium, shared with city rivals Internazionale, is the largest in Italian football, with a total capacity of 80,018.
Inter are considered their biggest rivals, matches between the two teams are called Derby della Madonnina, one of the most followed derbies in football. The club is one of the wealthiest in Italian and world football, it was a founding member of the now-defunct G-14 group of Europe's leading football clubs as well as its replacement, the European Club Association. A. C. Milan was founded as Milan Foot-Ball and Cricket Club in 1899 by English expatriates Alfred Edwards and Herbert Kilpin. Although the club itself claims 16 December of that year as its foundation date, historical evidence show that the club was founded on 13 December. In honour of its English origins, the club has retained the English spelling of the city's name, as opposed to the Italian spelling Milano, which it was forced to bear under the fascist regime. Milan won its first Italian championship in 1901 and a further two in succession in 1906 and 1907. In 1908, Milan experienced a split caused by internal disagreements over the signing of foreign players, which led to the forming of another Milan-based team, F.
C. Internazionale Milano. Following these events, Milan did not manage to win a single domestic title until 1950–51; the 1950s saw the club return to the top of Italian football, headed by the famous Gre-No-Li Swedish trio Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm. This was one of the club's most successful periods domestically, with the Scudetto going to Milan in 1951, 1955, 1957, 1959 and 1962. In 1963, Milan won its first continental title by beating Benfica in the final of the European Cup; this success was repeated in 1969, with a 4–1 win over Ajax in the final, followed by the Intercontinental Cup title the same year. During this period Milan won its first Coppa Italia, with victory over Padova in the 1967 final, two European Cup Winners' Cups: in 1967–68 and 1972–73. Milan won a tenth league title in 1979, but after the retirement of Gianni Rivera in the same year, the team went into a period of decline; the club was involved in the 1980 Totonero scandal and as punishment was relegated to Serie B for the first time in its history.
The scandal was centred around a betting syndicate paying players and officials to fix the outcome of matches. Milan achieved promotion back to Serie A at the first attempt, winning the 1980–81 Serie B title, but were again relegated a year as the team ended its 1981–82 campaign in third-last place. In 1983, Milan won the Serie B title for the second time in three seasons to return to Serie A, where they achieved a sixth-place finish in 1983–84. On 20 February 1986, entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi acquired the club and saved it from bankruptcy after investing vast amounts of money, appointing rising manager Arrigo Sacchi at the helm of the Rossoneri and signing Dutch internationals Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard; the Dutch trio added an attacking impetus to the team, complemented the club's Italian internationals Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Alessandro Costacurta and Roberto Donadoni. Under Sacchi, Milan won its first Scudetto in nine years in the 1987–88 season; the following year, the club won its first European Cup in two decades, beating Romanian club Steaua București 4–0 in the final.
Milan retained their title with a 1–0 win over Benfica a year and was the last team to win back-to-back European Cups until Real Madrid's win in 2017. The Milan team of 1989–90, nicknamed the "Immortals" in the Italian media, has been voted the best club side of all time in a global poll of experts conducted by World Soccer magazine. After Sacchi left Milan in 1991, he was replaced by the club's former player Fabio Capello whose team won three consecutive Serie A titles between 1992 and 1994, a spell which included a 58-match unbeaten run in Serie A, back-to-back UEFA Champions League final appearances in 1993, 1994 and 1995. A year after losing 1–0 to Marseille in the 1993 Champions League final, Capello's team reached its peak in one of Milan's most memorable matches of all time, the famous 4–0 win over Barcelona in the 1994 Champions League final. Capello's side went on to win the 1995–96 league title before he left to coach Real Madrid in 1996. In 1998–99, after a two-year period of decline, Milan lifted its 16th championship in the club's centenary season.
Milan's next period of success came under Carlo Ancelotti. After his appointment in November 2001, Ancelotti took Milan to the 2003 Champions League final, where they defeated Juventus on penalties to win the club's sixth European Cup; the team won the Scudetto in 2003–04 before reaching the 2005 Champions
ACF Fiorentina
ACF Fiorentina referred to as Fiorentina, is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany. Founded by a merger in August 1926, refounded in August 2002 following bankruptcy, Fiorentina have played at the top level of Italian football for the majority of their existence. Fiorentina has won two Italian Championships, in 1955–56 and again in 1968–69, as well as six Coppa Italia trophies and one Supercoppa Italiana. On the European stage, Fiorentina won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1960–61 and lost the final one year later, they finished runners-up in the 1956–57 European Cup, losing against Real Madrid, came close to winning the 1989–90 UEFA Cup, finishing as runners-up against Juventus after losing the first leg in Turin and drawing in the second one in Avellino. Fiorentina is one of the fourteen European teams that played the finals in all three major continental competitions: the Champions League, the UEFA Cup Winners and the UEFA Cup. Since 1931, the club have played at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which has a capacity of 43,147.
The stadium has undergone several renovations. Fiorentina are known by the nickname Viola, a reference to their distinctive purple colours. Associazione Calcio Fiorentina was founded in the autumn of 1926 by local noble and National Fascist Party member Luigi Ridolfi, who initiated the merger of two older Florentine clubs, CS Firenze and PG Libertas; the aim of the merger was to give Florence a strong club to rival those of the more dominant Italian Football Championship sides of the time from Northwest Italy. Influential was the cultural revival and rediscovery of Calcio Fiorentino, an ancestor of modern football, played by members of the Medici family. After a rough start and three seasons in lower leagues, Fiorentina reached the Serie A in 1931; that same year saw the opening of the new stadium named after Giovanni Berta, a prominent fascist, but now known as Stadio Artemio Franchi. At the time, the stadium was a masterpiece of engineering, its inauguration was monumental. To be able to compete with the best teams in Italy, Fiorentina strengthened their team with some new players, notably the Uruguayan Pedro Petrone, nicknamed el Artillero.
Despite enjoying a good season and finishing in fourth place, Fiorentina were relegated the following year, although they would return to Serie A. In 1941, they won their first Coppa Italia, but the team were unable to build on their success during the 1940s because of World War II and other troubles. In 1950, Fiorentina started to achieve consistent top-five finishes in the domestic league; the team consisted of great players such as well-known goalkeeper Giuliano Sarti, Sergio Cervato, Francesco Rosella, Guido Gratton, Giuseppe Chiappella and Aldo Scaramucci but above all, the attacking duo of Brazilian Julinho and Argentinian Miguel Montuori. This team won Fiorentina's first scudetto in 1955–56, 12 points ahead of second-place Milan. Milan beat Fiorentina to top spot the following year, but more Fiorentina became the first Italian team to play in a European Cup final, when a disputed penalty led to a 2–0 defeat at the hands of Alfredo Di Stéfano's Real Madrid. Fiorentina were runners-up again in the three subsequent seasons.
In the 1960–61 season, the club won the Coppa Italia again and was successful in Europe, winning the first Cup Winners' Cup against Scottish side Rangers. After several years of runner-up finishes, Fiorentina dropped away in the 1960s, bouncing from fourth to sixth place, although the club won the Coppa Italia and the Mitropa Cup in 1966. While the 1960s did result in some trophies and good Serie A finishes for Fiorentina, nobody believed that the club could challenge for the title; the 1968–69 season started with Milan as frontrunners, but on matchday 7, they lost to Bologna and were overtaken by Gigi Riva's Cagliari. Fiorentina, after an unimpressive start moved to the top of the Serie A, but the first half of their season finished with a 2–2 draw against Varese, leaving Cagliari as outright league leader; the second half of the season was a three-way battle between the three contending teams, Milan and Fiorentina. Milan fell away, instead focusing their efforts on the European Cup, it seemed that Cagliari would retain top spot.
After Cagliari lost against Juventus, Fiorentina took over at the top. The team won all of their remaining matches, beating rivals Juve in Turin on the penultimate matchday to seal their second, last, national title. In the European Cup competition the following year, Fiorentina had some good results, including a win in the Soviet Union against Dynamo Kyiv, but they were knocked out in the quarter-finals after a 3–0 defeat in Glasgow to Celtic. Viola players began the 1970s decade with Scudetto sewed on their breast, but the period was not fruitful for the team. After a fifth-place finish in 1971, they finished in mid-table every year flirting with relegation in 1972 and 1978; the Viola did win the Anglo-Italian League Cup in 1974 and won the Coppa Italia again in 1975. The team consisted of young talents like Vincenzo Guerini and Moreno Roggi, who had the misfortune to suffer bad injuries, above all Giancarlo Antognoni, who would become an idol to Fiorentina's fans; the young average age of the players led to the team being called Fiorentina Ye-Ye.
In 1980, Fiorentina was bought by Flavio Pontello. He changed the team's anthem and logo, leading to some complaints
Italy
Italy the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Austria and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km2 and has a temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe. Due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, Italy has been home to a myriad of peoples and cultures. In addition to the various ancient peoples dispersed throughout modern-day Italy, the most famous of which being the Indo-European Italics who gave the peninsula its name, beginning from the classical era and Carthaginians founded colonies in insular Italy and Genoa, Greeks established settlements in the so-called Magna Graecia, while Etruscans and Celts inhabited central and northern Italy respectively; the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom in the 8th century BC, which became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People.
The Roman Republic conquered and assimilated its neighbours on the peninsula, in some cases through the establishment of federations, the Republic expanded and conquered parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. By the first century BC, the Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin and became the leading cultural and religious centre of Western civilisation, inaugurating the Pax Romana, a period of more than 200 years during which Italy's technology, economy and literature flourished. Italy remained the metropole of the Roman Empire; the legacy of the Roman Empire endured its fall and can be observed in the global distribution of culture, governments and the Latin script. During the Early Middle Ages, Italy endured sociopolitical collapse and barbarian invasions, but by the 11th century, numerous rival city-states and maritime republics in the northern and central regions of Italy, rose to great prosperity through shipping and banking, laying the groundwork for modern capitalism.
These independent statelets served as Europe's main trading hubs with Asia and the Near East enjoying a greater degree of democracy than the larger feudal monarchies that were consolidating throughout Europe. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science and art. Italian culture flourished, producing famous scholars and polymaths such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Machiavelli. During the Middle Ages, Italian explorers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, John Cabot and Giovanni da Verrazzano discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. Italy's commercial and political power waned with the opening of trade routes that bypassed the Mediterranean. Centuries of infighting between the Italian city-states, such as the Italian Wars of the 15th and 16th centuries, left the region fragmented, it was subsequently conquered and further divided by European powers such as France and Austria.
By the mid-19th century, rising Italian nationalism and calls for independence from foreign control led to a period of revolutionary political upheaval. After centuries of foreign domination and political division, Italy was entirely unified in 1871, establishing the Kingdom of Italy as a great power. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Italy industrialised, namely in the north, acquired a colonial empire, while the south remained impoverished and excluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large and influential diaspora. Despite being one of the main victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil, leading to the rise of a fascist dictatorship in 1922. Participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in military defeat, economic destruction and the Italian Civil War. Following the liberation of Italy and the rise of the resistance, the country abolished the monarchy, reinstated democracy, enjoyed a prolonged economic boom and, despite periods of sociopolitical turmoil became a developed country.
Today, Italy is considered to be one of the world's most culturally and economically advanced countries, with the sixth-largest worldwide national wealth. Its advanced economy ranks eighth-largest in the world and third in the Eurozone by nominal GDP. Italy owns the third-largest central bank gold reserve, it has a high level of human development, it stands among the top countries for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military and diplomatic affairs. Italy is a founding and leading member of the European Union and a member of numerous international institutions, including the UN, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the WTO, the G7, the G20, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Council of Europe, Uniting for Consensus, the Schengen Area and many more; as a reflection
U.S. Lecce
Unione Sportiva Lecce referred to as Lecce, is an Italian football club based in Lecce, Apulia. It plays in Serie B, the second tier of the Italian football pyramid, plays its home games at Stadio Via del Mare which has a capacity of 40,670 spectators; the club was formed in 1908 and has spent a large part of their recent history bouncing between Italy's second division and Serie A, where the team debuted in the 1985–86 season. Its best Serie A finish is the ninth place obtained in the 1988–89 season; the club is 27th in the Serie A all-time table and is the second club from Apulia as regards appearances in the first two tiers of Italian football, with 15 Serie A seasons and 25 Serie B seasons. Lecce won a Coppa Ali della Vittoria as Serie B winner in 2010, a Coppa Italia Serie C in 1975 and a Anglo-Italian Cup Semiprofessionals in 1976. Lecce players and fans are nicknamed salentini or giallorossi or lupi. Lecce was founded as Sporting Club Lecce on 15 March 1908 including football, track-and-field and cycling sports.
The first club president was Francesco Marangi. The first colours worn by Lecce during this time were black and white stripes, known in Italy as bianconeri. In its formative years, Lecce played in regional leagues and competitions. During the 1923–24 season, the club dissolved before returning on 16 September 1927 as Unione Sportiva Lecce; the club was still wearing black and white stripes at this point, the first president under the name Unione Sportiva Lecce was Luigi López y Rojo. Taranto Sport played Lecce in a game for promotion to Serie B from the local Southern Italian league, they were entered into Serie B for the 1929–30 season. The first game match played in the league was against Novara on 6 October 1929, a 2–1 victory. Lecce would finish 13th. However, for the second time in the club's history, it ceased activity at the end of the 1931–32 season. Four years Lecce returned and competed Serie C, finishing 11th in their return season. Around this time, the club was in turmoil: the following season they withdrew from Serie C after four days, during the 1938–39 season, they finished in third place but were moved down to 12th after it was revealed the club had violated the league's federal regulations.
The club finished in first place during the 1943–44 season, but club football was suspended due to World War II. Nonetheless, when club football resumed, Lecce finished as champions of Serie C, gaining promotion back into Serie B. Two decent seasons followed, with star player Silvestri scoring 20 goals in one season, before the club was relegated. Lecce stayed down in Serie C for six seasons during this period, though this was not a successful time for the club. Striker Anselmo Bislenghi scored 83 goals for the club during this period; the club slipped lower to Serie IV, where they spent three years. From 1959 to 1975, Lecce played 17 seasons in Serie C, they came close to promotion several times during that period, finishing in second place three seasons in a row before gaining promotion in the 1975–76 season. The same year as their promotion, Lecce tasted cup success, winning the Coppa Italia Serie C. In 1976, Lecce took part in the Anglo-Italian Cup, notching up a 4–0 victory against ScarboroughIn 1980, a scandal occurred which rocked Italian football, including Lecce under president Franco Jurlano.
However, Jurlano was able to demonstrate his innocence and the scandal only lead to disqualification of player Claudius Merlo. The club was struck by a tragedy in 1983: players Michele Lo Russo and Ciro Pezzella died in an automotive accident. To this day, Lo Russo remains the club record holder for most number of appearances, with 415. Under the management of Eugenio Fascetti, Lecce would achieve promotion to Serie A for the first time in 1985, they finished bottom and were relegated after only one season, but defeated Roma 3–2 away in the penultimate game to deal a fatal blow to Roma's title hopes. Losing a promotion play-off 2–1 to Cesena the following season, they would return to Serie A in 1988. Under Carlo Mazzone, Lecce finished a respectable ninth place in 1989. Stars of the side included midfielders Antonio Conte and Paolo Benedetti, they lasted three seasons before relegation, returned two years later. The 1993–94 season saw Lecce finish in last place with a pitiful 11 points, the lowest of any Serie A team, a second relegation came the following year.
Giampiero Ventura saw Lecce achieve successive promotions before leaving for Cagliari. Once more, it proved a struggle in Serie A despite the best efforts of striker Francesco Palmieri and a famous away win against Milan on 19 October 1997. In the summer of 1998, Pantaleo Corvino was appointed new sports director, gaining a reputation for scouting new talents in the years to come; the team was good enough to return to Serie A in 1999 and begin another three-year stint in the top-flight, with yet another return to Serie A in 2003. In 2004, under Delio Rossi, managing the club since 2002, Lecce achieved an impressive result, reaching a high-point of tenth despite a poor first half of the season. Famous performances include two sensational victories in a row, first against Italian giants Juventus 3–4 in Turin and against Internazionale 2–1 at the Stadio Via del Mare. In 2004–05, coach Zdeněk Zeman oversaw a attack-minded team that scored plenty of goals. Lecce ended the year again finishing tenth, putting in the spotlight talents like Valeri Bojinov and Mirko Vučinić.
The team had the second-best attac
Inter Milan
Football Club Internazionale Milano referred to as Internazionale or Inter and colloquially known as Inter Milan outside Italy, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Inter is the only Italian club to have never been relegated from the top flight. Inter has won 30 domestic trophies on par with its local rivals A. C. Milan, including 18 league titles, 7 Coppa Italia and 5 Supercoppa Italiana. From 2006 to 2010, the club won five successive league titles, equalling the all-time record at that time, they have won the Champions League three times: two back-to-back in 1964 and 1965 and another in 2010. Their latest win completed an unprecedented Italian seasonal treble, with Inter winning the Coppa Italia and the Scudetto the same year; the club has won three UEFA Cups, two Intercontinental Cups and one FIFA Club World Cup. Inter's home games are played at the San Siro stadium known as the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza. Shared with rival A. C. Milan, the stadium is the largest in Italian football with a capacity of 80,018.
The local team A. C. Milan are considered among their biggest rivals, matches between the two teams, known as the Derby della Madonnina, are one of the most followed derbies in football; as of 2010, Inter is the second-most supported team in Italy, the sixth most-supported team in Europe. The club is one of the most valuable in Italian and world football, it was a founding member of the now-defunct G-14 group of Europe's leading football clubs. The club was founded on 9 March 1908 as Football Club Internazionale, following the schism with the Milan Cricket and Football Club; the name of the club derives from the wish of its founding members to accept foreign players as well as Italians. The club won its first championship in 1910 and its second in 1920; the captain and coach of the first championship winning team was Virgilio Fossati, killed in battle while serving in the Italian army during World War I. In 1922, Inter remained in the top league after winning two play-offs. Six years during the Fascist era, the club was forced to merge with the Unione Sportiva Milanese and was renamed Società Sportiva Ambrosiana.
The team wore white jerseys during this time with a red cross emblazoned on it. The jersey's design was inspired by the coat of arms of the city of Milan. In 1929, club chairman Oreste Simonotti changed the club's name to Associazione Sportiva Ambrosiana, however supporters continued to call the team Inter, in 1931 new chairman Pozzani caved in to shareholder pressure and changed the name to Associazione Sportiva Ambrosiana-Inter, their first Coppa Italia was won in 1938–39, led by the iconic Giuseppe Meazza, after whom the San Siro stadium is named. A fifth championship followed despite Meazza incurring an injury. After the end of World War II the club regained its original name, winning its sixth championship in 1953 and its seventh in 1954. In 1960, manager Helenio Herrera joined Inter from Barcelona, bringing with him his midfield general Luis Suárez, who won the European Footballer of the Year in the same year for his role in Barcelona's La Liga/Fairs Cup double, he would transform Inter into one of the greatest teams in Europe.
He modified a 5–3–2 tactic known as the "Verrou" which created greater flexibility for counterattacks. The catenaccio system was invented by Karl Rappan. Rappan's original system was implemented with four fixed defenders, playing a strict man-to-man marking system, plus a playmaker in the middle of the field who plays the ball together with two midfield wings. Herrera would modify it by adding a fifth defender, the sweeper or libero behind the two centre backs; the sweeper or libero who acted as the free man would deal with any attackers who went through the two centre backs. Inter finished third in the Serie A in his first season, second the next year and first in his third season. Followed a back-to-back European Cup victory in 1964 and 1965, earning him the title "il Mago"; the core of Herrera's team were the attacking fullbacks Tarcisio Burgnich and Giacinto Facchetti, Armando Picchi the sweeper, Suárez the playmaker, Jair the winger, Mario Corso the left midfielder, Sandro Mazzola, who played on the inside-right.
In 1964, Inter reached the European Cup Final by beating Borussia Dortmund in the semi-final and Partizan in the quarter-final. In the final, they met a team that had reached seven out of the nine finals to date. Mazzola scored two goals in a 3–1 victory, the team won the Intercontinental Cup against Independiente. A year Inter repeated the feat by beating two-time winner Benfica in the final held at home, from a Jair goal, again beat Independiente in the Intercontinental Cup. In 1967, with Jair gone and Suárez injured, Inter lost the European Cup Final 2–1 to Celtic. During that year the club changed its name to Football Club Internazionale Milano. 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 Cruyff's Ajax in 1972. During the 1970s and the 1980s, Inter added two to its Coppa Italia tally, in 1977–78 and 1981–82.
Led by the German duo of Andreas Brehme and Lothar Matthäus, Argentine Ramón Díaz, Inter captured the 1989 Serie A championship. Inter were unable to defend their title despite adding fellow German Jürgen Klinsmann to the squad and winning their first Supercoppa Italiana at the start of the season; the 1990s was a period of disappointment. While their great rivals Milan and Juventus were achieving success both domestically and in Europe, Inter
Adrian Mutu
Adrian Mutu is a Romanian football coach and former player, the reserve team coach at United Arab Emirates club Al Wahda. As a player, he played as a forward. Mutu started his career in Romania playing two years for Argeș Pitești and half a year for Dinamo București, before joining Internazionale in Italy midway through the 1999–2000 Serie A. After only 10 games with the Nerazzurri, he left for Hellas Verona and Parma, for which he scored 39 goals in the next three years, his excellent form brought him a €22.5 million transfer to Chelsea. Due to breach of contract for failing a drug test, he was released and returned to Serie A to join Juventus. After the 2006 Italian football scandal and the relegation of Juventus to Serie B, Mutu decided to join Fiorentina, where he played for five years, he had a season at Cesena and French club Ajaccio before returning to his native country with Petrolul Ploiești in 2014. After two more brief spells with Pune City and ASA Târgu Mureș, Mutu retired from professional football in 2016.
From his international debut in 2000, Mutu played 77 matches for the Romanian national team and scored 35 goals, a joint record alongside Gheorghe Hagi. He was included in the country's squads at the European Championship in 2000 and 2008. A four-time winner of the Romanian Footballer of the Year award, only Gheorghe Popescu and Gheorghe Hagi have received the award more times, with six and seven wins respectively. Mutu began his professional career with FC Dinamo Bucureşti. In 2000, Mutu was sold by Inter for 7,500 million lire; the Veneto side has signed Mauro Camoranesi and young rising star Alberto Gilardino that season, but narrowly avoided relegation through winning the relegation tie-breaker playoffs. In June 2001, Verona bought Mutu outright, for 5,100 million lire. In the 2002–03 season, Mutu was loaned to Parma with the option to purchase him outright. In August 2003, Chelsea paid Parma €22.5m for Mutu's transfer as part of new owner Roman Abramovich's spending spree,In the 2004–05 season, Mutu had a difficult relationship with the club's new manager José Mourinho, with each accusing the other of lying about whether the player was injured for a 2006 World Cup qualifying match against the Czech Republic.
In September 2004, Mutu was banned from football for 7 months until May 2005 after testing positive for cocaine use. Chelsea started to seek compensation from Mutu in early 2005; the Football Association Premier League Appeals Committee decided that the player had committed a breach of his contract without just cause which made Chelsea eligible to claim the compensation. Mutu started his first appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in April 2005 but the case was dismissed in December 2005. On 11 May 2006, Chelsea applied to FIFA for an award of compensation against Mutu. In particular, the club requested that the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber award compensation to the club following Mutu's breaching the employment contract without just cause. However, on 26 October, the DRC decided that it did not have jurisdiction to make a decision in the dispute and that the claim by the club was therefore not admissible. On 22 December, Chelsea lodged a new appeal before the CAS seeking the annulment of the DRC's decision.
On 21 May 2007, a CAS panel upheld the club's appeal, set aside the DRC's decision, referred the matter back to the DRC, "which does have jurisdiction to determine and impose the appropriate sporting sanction and/or order for compensation, if any, arising out of the dispute" between the Club and the Player,"On 7 May 2008, the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber ordered Mutu to pay €17,173,990 in compensation to his former club, Chelsea FC, for breach of contract. This included €16,500,000 for the unamortised portion of the transfer fee paid to Parma, €307,340 for the unamortised portion of the sign-on fee, €366,650 for the unamortised portion of the fee to the Agent, but was not to take into account the determination of the damages for the amounts paid by the club to the player or the remaining value of the employment contract. Mutu had to pay within 30 days after being informed of the decision in August 2008. Mutu lodged an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport for the second time, but on 31 July 2009, that court dismissed his appeal, Mutu was ordered to pay Chelsea the amount plus interest of 5% p.a. starting on 12 September 2008 until the effective date of payment.
In addition, Mutu had to pay the costs of arbitration for both parties, including CHF 50,000 to Chelsea. The fine was the highest levied by FIFA. Mutu could have been banned from football by FIFA if he did not pay the fine although some lawyers disputed this. Mutu started his third appeal, this time to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, in October 2009, but on 14 June 2010 this appeal was dismissed with Mutu again being ordered to pay Chelsea €17m in damages. In 2013, FIFA DRC decided in a new ruling that Livorno and Juventus were jointly liable to pay compensation. On 21 January 2015 the Court of Arbitration for Sport annulled the FIFA DRC ruling. Mutu signed a five-year contract with the Italian club Juventus on 12 January 2005, despite still being banned from football until 18 May; as Juventus had no available room to buy another non-EU
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