Storie Rossonere

Weah's coast-to-coast: a goal that started in his own penalty box

On the opening day of the 1996/97 season, a Milan side in transition after Fabio Capello's departure to Real Madrid found itself trailing Verona at San Siro to a De Vitis header. After Milan turned it around, the moment that made history came in the 86th minute: a Verona corner dropped to George Weah inside his own penalty area, and instead of clearing, the Liberian simply set off. He ran the entire length of the pitch, weaving past defender after defender, and finished across the goalkeeper — one of the greatest solo goals ever scored at San Siro. Roberto Baggio added a fourth to seal a 4-1 win.

George Weah · Roberto Baggio · Oscar Washington Tabárez

Source: acmilan.com (official club history article) · Photo: United States Department of State Africa U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit: Photos and Videos (Public domain)

"Franz", "Piscinin" and the Cruijff of defenders: 60 messages for Baresi

For Franco Baresi's 60th birthday the club collected exactly 60 video messages — one per year — from teammates, coaches and celebrities. Paolo Maldini let slip the dressing-room nicknames: to teammates Baresi was "Franz" or "Piscinin", but to Maldini he was only ever "the Captain". Marco van Basten paid him the ultimate compliment, calling him "the Johan Cruijff of defenders" — a warrior who could also play. The club noted a lovely numerical coincidence: at 60, his age finally contained the number 6 he made immortal, the shirt Milan retired in 1997 and which still flies on a flag over the Curva Sud.

Franco Baresi · Paolo Maldini · Marco van Basten · Arrigo Sacchi · Carlo Ancelotti · …

Source: acmilan.com (official club celebration article) · Photo: Kurt Schorrer (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The night Naples applauded the enemy: Sacchi's favourite memory

In the club's tribute for his 80th birthday, the defining image of the Sacchi revolution is the 3-2 win over Maradona's Napoli at the San Paolo on 1 May 1988, the match that effectively decided the scudetto. Sacchi's own memory of it is not the goals but the crowd: he recalled that the Naples supporters applauded the better team off the pitch, calling them "extremely sporting". A year later his Milan demolished Steaua Bucharest 4-0 in the European Cup final, prompting French paper L'Équipe to declare that football would never be the same again. The club also notes that in the Sacchi years San Siro season tickets were sold out by mid-August, and that UEFA in 2022 crowned that side the greatest team of all time.

Arrigo Sacchi · Silvio Berlusconi

Source: acmilan.com (official club celebration article) · Photo: Elena Torre (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Dida's sliding-doors moment: from forgotten loanee to Manchester hero

The club's birthday retrospective recalls that Dida's Milan career nearly never happened: signed in 1999, he barely played and was loaned out to Lugano and back to Corinthians. His real Rossoneri story began almost by accident on 14 August 2002, when he came on at half-time of a Champions League qualifier against Slovan Liberec and played so well he never gave the shirt back. Nine months later in the all-Italian final in Manchester he stopped three Juventus penalties — Trezeguet, Zalayeta and Montero — and his celebration with Shevchenko became an iconic image. He remains one of the very few players to win the world club title with two different clubs (Corinthians 2000, Milan 2007), and left in 2010 to a San Siro standing ovation after 302 appearances.

Nelson Dida · Andriy Shevchenko · Gianluigi Buffon · Christian Abbiati

Source: acmilan.com (official club #OnThisDay article) · Photo: Roberto Vicario (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Down 0-2 to a goal straight from a corner: the derby comeback of 2004

The club's own "Time Machine" series relives a rain-slicked derby from the 17th scudetto season: after 15 minutes Dejan Stanković embarrassed Dida by scoring directly from a corner kick, and a deflected Cristiano Zanetti shot made it 0-2 to Inter at the break. The turning point was a miss — Adriano ballooned the chance that would have killed the game. Within two second-half minutes substitute Tomasson and Kaká drew Milan level, and in the 85th Clarence Seedorf won it 3-2 with what the club describes as a devastating long-range missile of rare beauty.

Dejan Stanković · Jon Dahl Tomasson · Kaká · Clarence Seedorf · Adriano · …

Source: acmilan.com (official club "Time Machine" article, Italian) · Photo: Tsutomu Takasu (CC BY 2.0)

Forza Milan!: the club magazine that ran for 55 years

Founded in 1963 by journalist Gino Sansoni — the year of Milan's first European Cup — Forza Milan! was a monthly magazine devoted entirely to one club, something almost unheard of at the time. Published by Panini, it mixed match reports and interviews with posters and photos not just of the stars but of youth-team kids and even club employees, and it became the keeper of the club's anecdotes and legends for generations of fans. It ran uninterrupted for 55 years until June 2018, when the final issue appeared with Gennaro Gattuso on the cover.

Gino Sansoni · Gennaro Gattuso

Forza Milan!, first issue 1963; final issue June 2018 · Source: Wikipedia (cross-checked with acmilan.com Milan TV article)

The magazine reborn as television: Milan TV's "Forza Milan" retrospective

Four years after the presses stopped, the club brought its beloved monthly back to life as a television format: every evening at 20:15 from 1 December to Christmas Day 2022, Milan TV aired "Forza Milan", in which Francesco Specchia and long-time club journalist Luca Serafini leafed back through the magazine's archive of memories and anecdotes, focusing on the great teams of the 1980s and 90s. Guests included Paolo Maldini and Andrés Guglielminpietro, and episodes covered stories such as how Serafini joined the editorial staff and the curious bond between TV journalist Maurizio Mosca and Silvio Berlusconi. The episodes were also released on the club's official YouTube channel — the house magazine turned into house television.

Francesco Specchia · Luca Serafini · Paolo Maldini · Andrés Guglielminpietro · Maurizio Mosca · …

Forza Milan! (Milan TV retrospective series, 2022) · Source: acmilan.com (official Milan TV article)

Horses under the stands, and a defeat to christen it: San Siro's odd birth

Milan president Piero Pirelli, an admirer of English football, ordered a pure football stadium with no athletics track — and got it built in just 13 months between August 1925 and September 1926. The club's own history admits two delicious details: the spaces under the original stands doubled as stables and hay barns for the racecourse next door, and in the first official match there, on 3 October 1926, Milan managed to lose 2-1 to Sampierdarenese in their brand-new home. The unofficial opening a fortnight earlier had been, fittingly, a friendly derby against Inter.

Piero Pirelli · Ulisse Stacchini · Alberto Cugini

Source: acmilan.com (official San Siro venue history page) · Photo: Prelvini (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Named after a winger his dad loved: how Tijjani Reijnders got his name

The club's official welcome feature revealed that the Dutch midfielder carries a Nigerian name: his father Martin, himself a former professional, so admired the flying Ajax and Vitesse winger Tijjani Babangida that he named his son after him. The same piece notes Reijnders arrived as only the 17th Dutchman in Milan's history, heir to a lineage running through Gullit, Rijkaard and van Basten, and that in his final AZ season he played all 54 matches without missing a single one. His first taste of Italy had come years earlier in an Under-20 match — against future Milan teammate Matteo Gabbia.

Tijjani Reijnders · Martin Reijnders · Tijjani Babangida · Matteo Gabbia

Source: acmilan.com (official "5 things to know" feature) · Photo: Saggittarius A (CC BY 4.0)

The man who founded Forza Milan! also gave his name to Diabolik's nemesis

Forza Milan! was launched in November 1963 by Gino Sansoni, an eccentric Milanese publisher and die-hard rossonero who had registered the title back in 1960 and finally printed it months after the Wembley triumph over Benfica — 40 pages on cheap paper for 200 lire, the first official-style club magazine in Italian football. Sansoni was married to Angela Giussani, the creator of the Diabolik comics, and she named the master thief's eternal adversary Inspector Ginko after her husband Gino, with a K. As a wink to Sansoni's faith, Ginko is even drawn wearing red-and-black neckties. The magazine became AC Milan's official publication in 1969 and ran until 2018.

Gino Sansoni · Angela Giussani · Gipo Viani

Forza Milan!, n.1, novembre 1963 · Source: Maglia Rossonera (magliarossonera.it)

Schiaffino and the coffee that 'made him nervous'

Milan paid a world-record 52 million lire to bring Schiaffino from Peñarol in 1954, but the Uruguayan genius was famously careful with his own money. On a cold, windy Saturday in Genoa before an away match, Liedholm suggested the group stop for a coffee; Pepe first checked whether the club would be picking up the bill. When Nordahl told him everyone paid for their own, Schiaffino announced he would wait outside because coffee made him nervous. Teammates also swore he spent his Monday rest days across the Swiss border tending to currency deals and investments, turning tidy profits into apartments and shops.

Juan Alberto Schiaffino · Nils Liedholm · Gunnar Nordahl

Source: Storie di Calcio (storiedicalcio.altervista.org) · Photo: Panini (Public domain)

Gre-No-Li: a fireman, a tax clerk and a signing at 4 a.m.

Before conquering San Siro, the great Swedish trio held day jobs: Nordahl was a firefighter and Liedholm a tax-office clerk, training together during lunch breaks under coach Lajos Czeizler. Nordahl arrived at Milan having scored 93 goals in 92 league games for Norrköping, while Liedholm resisted the club's contract offer until four in the morning before finally signing. The famous 'Gre-No-Li' tag wasn't a club invention at all — journalist Aldo Congiu of the Milano Sera newspaper coined it to squeeze three Swedish surnames into a headline. The trio's masterpiece came on 5 February 1950, when Milan humiliated Juventus 7-1 in Turin with Nordahl scoring twice.

Gunnar Gren · Gunnar Nordahl · Nils Liedholm

Source: Storie di Calcio (storiedicalcio.altervista.org) · Photo: Emilio Ronchini (Mondadori Publishers) (Public domain)

Flying forks at Milanello: how Pirlo and friends tormented Gattuso

In his autobiography, Pirlo described a self-styled gang of 'bastards' — himself, Ambrosini, Nesta, Inzaghi, Abbiati and Oddo — whose favourite hobby at Milanello was winding up Gattuso until forks started flying. They corrected his grammar at meals, and when he actually conjugated a verb correctly they convinced him he was wrong anyway; Pirlo once loudly declared the lunch fish inedible, knowing it came from Gattuso's family fishery in Calabria. The boldest stunt saw Pirlo steal Rino's phone and text sporting director Ariedo Braida in his name, running fake contract negotiations until a furious Gattuso had to call Braida and explain it was one of Pirlo's idiotic pranks. Gattuso also once ate a live snail for a bet — and the gang never even paid him the money.

Gennaro Gattuso · Andrea Pirlo · Massimo Ambrosini · Alessandro Nesta · Filippo Inzaghi · …

Source: Sky Sport Italia (retelling Pirlo's autobiography 'Penso quindi gioco') · Photo: Chivista (German Wikipedia user) (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Van Basten's farewell: 'It felt like attending my own funeral'

Betrayed by an ankle that no surgery could save, Van Basten said goodbye to football at 28, saluting San Siro before the Milan-Juventus Berlusconi Trophy match on 18 August 1995 — an evening he later compared to attending his own funeral. Forza Milan! had chronicled his whole rossonero life, including photo coverage of his July 1993 wedding to Liesbeth. Years later, the sight of one of his young daughters matter-of-factly fetching his crutches convinced him to have his ankle permanently fused so he could walk without pain again. He always insisted San Siro was the stadium he loved most: his home.

Marco van Basten · Adriano Galliani · Liesbeth van Basten

Forza Milan!, 1993 (wedding photo coverage) · Source: Maglia Rossonera (magliarossonera.it) · Photo: Rob Croes / Anefo (Nationaal Archief) (CC0)

The season Rivera out-dribbled Superman

At the peak of the 1968-69 season that would bring Milan its second European Cup, Rivera's fame crossed over from the sports pages into comic books: on 3 November 1968 he appeared on the cover of the Italian Superman comic, playfully presented as someone who could out-dribble the Man of Steel himself. Months later he lifted the European Cup in Madrid after the 4-1 demolition of Ajax and became the first Italian to win the Ballon d'Or, with France Football saluting him as pure class in its purest state.

Gianni Rivera

Source: Maglia Rossonera (magliarossonera.it) · Photo: Rolls Press / Popperfoto / Getty Images (Public domain (PD-Italy / PD-1996))

Diabolik's nemesis wears red and black — thanks to Forza Milan!'s founder

In 1946 Gino Sansoni married Angela Giussani, a Milanese model who in 1962 co-created the legendary comic Diabolik with her sister Luciana. The sisters named Diabolik's eternal adversary, Inspector Ginko, after Gino — his name with a K — and gave the character a wardrobe of red-and-black ties as a wink to her husband's rossonero obsession. The marriage eventually collapsed, with Sansoni reportedly more devoted to Milan than to Angela, yet Diabolik's success later allowed her to bail her ex-husband out of financial ruin more than once. So the founder of Milan's club magazine lives on twice over: in the archive of Forza Milan! and in Italy's most famous comic-book detective.

Gino Sansoni · Angela Giussani · Luciana Giussani

Source: Sportmemory (Ginko naming also confirmed at https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gino_Sansoni)

Rivera, a comedy star, and the fifth-ever issue

The cover archive kept by Maglia Rossonera preserves a March 1964 photograph of golden boy Gianni Rivera flipping through the fifth issue of the newborn official monthly together with Carlo Dapporto, one of Italy's most famous stage and screen comedians of the era. It is one of the earliest documented images of a Milan player engaging with the club's own magazine, barely four months into its life. The same archive credits Ubaldo Bungaro as the magazine's official photographer, picturing him with club president Luigi Carraro in a January 1967 issue, and records that the December 1963 issue's back cover showed José Altafini in action against Pelé's Santos in the Intercontinental Cup final.

Gianni Rivera · Carlo Dapporto · Ubaldo Bungaro

Forza Milan!, n.5, marzo 1964 · Source: Maglia Rossonera - Le copertine di Forza Milan! (1963 issues detailed at https://www.magliarossonera.it/img_forzamilan/Forzamilan1963.html) · Photo: Rolls Press / Popperfoto / Getty Images (Public domain (PD-Italy / PD-1996))

When the club's owner also owned the club's magazine

In April 1987, one year after Silvio Berlusconi bought AC Milan, journalist Luca Serafini joined the Forza Milan! editorial staff — and found himself in a curious corporate loop. The magazine was then directed by Gigi Vesigna and produced within the TV Sorrisi e Canzoni group, owned by Silvio Berlusconi Editore, meaning the man who owned the club also owned the publisher of the club's magazine. Serafini went on to become one of the magazine's signature bylines through the Sacchi and Capello glory years, later co-writing Andriy Shevchenko's book L'oro di Sheva. Under Vesigna and later the Melegari family, contributors like Serafini and Martino Pizzi turned the monthly into what fans called the bible of Milanismo.

Luca Serafini · Gigi Vesigna · Silvio Berlusconi

Source: Wikipedia (IT) - Luca Serafini (editors/contributors also confirmed at https://www.milancafe24.com/15336/primo-piano/addio-forza-milan-oltre-mezzo-secolo-rossonero-sui-nostri-scaffali.html)

The letters page fans read first

For generations of subscribers, Forza Milan! arrived by post each month and the ritual was always the same: many readers turned first not to the match reports but to the fan-correspondence section, where letters from the stands were published — the club's 'people's voice' in print. The magazine also marked every triumph of the Berlusconi era with special and extra editions that fans hoarded, and its centrefold posters of players ended up on bedroom walls across Italy and beyond. When it closed, collectors immediately began hunting down back issues, and complete runs are now prized rossonero memorabilia.

Source: MilanCafe24 (posters and special issues also at https://www.milanlive.it/2018/06/19/milan-news-mensile-forza-milan-chiude/)

The magazine that refused to die: Milan TV brings Forza Milan back

Four years after the presses stopped, AC Milan's own Media House resurrected Forza Milan as a television format: from 1 December 2022 until Christmas, Milan TV aired a nightly 20:15 show in which Francesco Specchia and former magazine writer Luca Serafini leafed back through the beloved monthly's pages. Studio guests included Paolo Maldini and Andrés Guglielminpietro, and episodes dug into stories like how Serafini first joined the editorial team and the relationship between TV pundit Maurizio Mosca and Silvio Berlusconi. The club put episodes on its official YouTube channel, and the series carried on into 2023 as a documentary strand on streaming platforms — an official admission that the old magazine's anecdotes were too good to leave in the archive.

Luca Serafini · Francesco Specchia · Paolo Maldini · Andrés Guglielminpietro · Maurizio Mosca

Source: AC Milan official site (schedule/guests also at https://sempremilan.it/2022/11/30/la-milan-media-house-presenta-forza-milan-un-nuovo-format/; 2023 series listing at https://tv.apple.com/it/episode/forza-milan/umc.cmc.3e44ovtqpqvaz88z1ifaa6np)

Where to see Forza Milan! pages today, free and legal

A small but genuine slice of the magazine survives online legally: Wikimedia Commons hosts a dedicated Forza Milan! category with 27 digitised files drawn from 1960s-70s issues. Among them are Gianni Rivera around his 1969 Ballon d'Or, portraits of Nereo Rocco and Cesare Maldini, squad photos from 1966-67 through 1974-75, San Siro crowd shots from around 1966, the youth team at the 1970 Viareggio Tournament, and action from the 1975 Coppa Italia final against Fiorentina. Alongside it, the fan archive Maglia Rossonera has scanned and catalogued every cover year by year from 1963 to 2018 — the closest thing that exists to a browsable museum of the magazine.

Gianni Rivera · Nereo Rocco · Cesare Maldini · Enrico Albertosi

Forza Milan!, various issues 1963-1975 · Source: Wikimedia Commons (cover archive at https://www.magliarossonera.it/Forzamilan.html)

The founder Milan lost for 82 years: Herbert Kilpin's forgotten grave

When Herbert Kilpin died in October 1916, the man who founded the Milan Football and Cricket Club in 1899 was buried in the non-Catholic section of Milan's Cimitero Maggiore — and then simply forgotten. When his burial concession expired, an anonymous benefactor quietly paid to move his bones into a small unmarked niche, saving them from dispersal, where they lay for some seven decades. In 1998 the Milan club historian Luigi La Rocca tracked Kilpin down through the cemetery archives, and in 1999 AC Milan had its founder's remains transferred with honour to the Monumentale cemetery's Galleria di Levante. The arc closed in December 2024, when, for the club's 125th anniversary, the city of Milan laid Kilpin to rest in the Famedio crypt of the Monumentale alongside Giuseppe Meazza, with the mayor, club chairman Paolo Scaroni and Kilpin's descendant Helen Stirland in attendance.

Herbert Kilpin · Luigi La Rocca

Source: Storie di Cimiteri (corroborated by acmilan.com official article, Dec 2024) · Photo: Unknown author (1910s) (Public domain (PD-old-70))

Forza Milan!: the pirate publisher who invented the club magazine

Gino Sansoni, an eccentric Romagna-born publisher with a genius for spotting what fans would buy, registered the title 'Forza Milan!' at the Milan courthouse in 1960 and launched the first issue in November 1963, riding the euphoria of the Wembley triumph over Benfica a few months earlier — 40 pages on cheap paper for 200 lire, and the first magazine in Italy devoted to a single club. It began life as an unofficial fan publication; in 1969 AC Milan adopted it as the club's official organ, which Sansoni regarded as the crowning achievement of his chaotic publishing career. It ran for 55 years, becoming what Milan fans called a 'bible of Milanismo', before the final issue appeared in June 2018 — and in 2022 Milan TV revived the name as a show mining the magazine's archive of anecdotes, with Paolo Maldini among the studio guests.

Gino Sansoni · Gianni Rivera

Forza Milan!, n.1, novembre 1963; final issue giugno 2018 · Source: Sportmemory (corroborated by acmilan.com Milan TV article and magliarossonera.it farewell page)

Diabolik's nemesis wears rossonero: the comic-book tribute to Forza Milan!'s founder

Forza Milan! founder Gino Sansoni was married to Angela Giussani, a former Lux soap model who in 1962, with her sister Luciana, created the legendary Italian comic Diabolik. The sisters named the master criminal's relentless police adversary 'Ginko' — Gino with a K — after Sansoni himself, and the inspector was drawn wearing red-and-black ties, a sly nod to the colours of the man about to launch AC Milan's magazine. The marriage eventually failed, but Angela repeatedly bailed the perennially broke Sansoni out of financial ruin.

Gino Sansoni · Angela Giussani

Source: Sportmemory

Altafini in the locker: the prank that 'gave Rocco a heart attack' — and bounced off Liedholm

The Brazilian striker José Altafini once hid naked inside a dressing-room locker at Milanello and burst out screaming when Nereo Rocco opened the door. The Paròn staggered to a bench clutching his chest and, in his Trieste dialect, growled that the 'bruto mona' had nearly given him a heart attack, ordering him never to do it again. Altafini tried the same trick on Rocco's successor Nils Liedholm, but the imperturbable Swede glanced at him and observed flatly that it wasn't even his locker — killing the joke stone dead. The story comes from a Milan history archive that cites Forza Milan! among its source publications.

José Altafini · Nereo Rocco · Nils Liedholm

Forza Milan! cited among the page's sources, issue not identified · Source: Maglia Rossonera (page cites Forza Milan! among its sources) · Photo: Unknown author; crop by Danyele (Public domain)

Milan to Trieste in fourth gear: Rocco, Rivera and a very stubborn gearbox

Nereo Rocco adored Gianni Rivera — he called him 'i miei oci', my eyes, and famously told him he'd give the instructions but on the pitch Rivera would decide. On one car journey from Milan all the way to his beloved Trieste, Rocco drove the entire route without ever shifting out of fourth gear. When Rivera finally asked why he didn't use the other gears, the Paròn snapped back in dialect: 'Ciò, mona, pensa ai fatti tuoi' — mind your own business, you fool. The exchange captures the gruff-tender father-son bond between the coach and his golden boy.

Nereo Rocco · Gianni Rivera

Forza Milan! cited among the page's sources, issue not identified · Source: Maglia Rossonera (page cites Forza Milan! among its sources) · Photo: Rolls Press / Popperfoto / Getty Images (Public domain (PD-Italy / PD-1996))

Cabinet meetings at the trattoria: Rocco's 'commissione interna'

Rocco effectively invented player-power the Milanese way: he formed an informal 'commissione interna' — an internal committee of senior players with Cesare Maldini, Gianni Rivera and Giovanni Trapattoni as its pillars — whom he consulted on discipline, dressing-room order and even formations. The committee's unofficial boardroom was the historic Milanese trattoria L'Assassino, where over glasses of wine Rocco held court, traded transfer gossip and governed the squad. He ran the dressing room the same way, showering alongside his players and turning their confidences into his management tool — a paternal authority decades ahead of its time.

Nereo Rocco · Cesare Maldini · Gianni Rivera · Giovanni Trapattoni

Forza Milan! cited among the page's sources, issue not identified · Source: Maglia Rossonera (page cites Forza Milan! among its sources)

The Brazilian they called 'Mazzola'

When José Altafini landed at Milan in 1958 aged just 20, he was already a World Cup winner with Brazil — and back home he wasn't even called Altafini: Brazilians had nicknamed him 'Mazzola' for his striking resemblance to Valentino Mazzola, the lost captain of the Grande Torino. The powerful forward repaid Milan instantly with 28 goals in 32 games in his debut season as the club won the Scudetto. His masterpiece came at Wembley in May 1963, when his two goals against Benfica made Milan the first Italian club to lift the European Cup.

José Altafini · Valentino Mazzola

Source: acmilan.com official Legends profile · Photo: Unknown author; crop by Danyele (Public domain)

Seventeen years old and already golden: Rivera's Milan arc

Gianni Rivera arrived from Alessandria and was in Milan's team at just 17 in 1960; by his second season he had a Scudetto, and a year after that the 'Golden Boy' was lifting the club's first European Cup at Wembley aged 19. He went on to become the first Italian ever to win the Ballon d'Or, and closed the circle in 1979 by ending his career with Milan's tenth title — the Scudetto of the star. He remains the one-club symbol of the Rocco era: 658 appearances and 164 goals, all in red and black.

Gianni Rivera

Source: acmilan.com official Legends profile · Photo: Rolls Press / Popperfoto / Getty Images (Public domain (PD-Italy / PD-1996))

Champagne for Lippi: the gift that saved Ancelotti's bench

In the club's own retelling, during the troubled winter of the 2006/07 season Milan discreetly sent a case of Franciacorta bubbly from a club sponsor to Marcello Lippi as congratulations for winning the World Cup — an unpublicised gesture the dressing room read perfectly: the fresh world champion was available, and Ancelotti's seat was getting warm. The squad answered on the pitch: Seedorf and Inzaghi, described by the club as Ancelotti's 'Praetorians', won the quarter-final in Munich, and Nesta pointedly ran to celebrate with his coach. Before the semi-final return against Manchester United, Ancelotti asked his players to promise they would carry the injured Paolo Maldini to Athens for the last final of his career; Milan won 3-0, then beat Liverpool 2-1 to lift the seventh European Cup — and Ancelotti kept his job.

Carlo Ancelotti · Marcello Lippi · Paolo Maldini · Clarence Seedorf · Filippo Inzaghi · …

Source: AC Milan official website — passion120 anniversary series · Photo: Bryan Berlin (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Weah's coast-to-coast: 90 metres on opening day

The club's match-history archive recounts that on the opening day of Serie A 1996/97 — Óscar Tabárez's very first league game in charge after Capello left for Real Madrid — Milan fell behind to Verona at San Siro before roaring back to win 4-1. The signature moment came in the 86th minute: George Weah gathered the ball inside his own penalty area from a Verona corner, set off on a solo run the length of the pitch past a trail of defenders, and finished across the goalkeeper. Simone had scored twice and Baggio added the fourth, but it is Weah's 'coast-to-coast' that the club still celebrates as one of the most extraordinary individual goals ever scored at San Siro.

George Weah · Óscar Tabárez · Roberto Baggio · Marco Simone

Source: AC Milan official website — match history archive · Photo: United States Department of State Africa U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit: Photos and Videos (Public domain)

Kaká's stratospheric year: the club's eighth Ballon d'Or

The official #OnThisDay retrospective walks through the season that made Kaká the sixth Milan player to win the Ballon d'Or — the eighth golden ball in club history — ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The club's own highlight reel of his 2006/07: a Champions League hat-trick against Anderlecht, a 93rd-minute winner against Celtic in the round of 16, a brace at Old Trafford that the site rates as containing his finest goal in a Milan shirt, and the assist for Inzaghi in the Athens final win over Liverpool. Milan's website calls it his 'stratospheric year', the crowning of the boy whose 2003 arrival it elsewhere describes as love at first sight.

Kaká · Cristiano Ronaldo · Lionel Messi

Source: AC Milan official website — #OnThisDay history article · Photo: Tsutomu Takasu (CC BY 2.0)

Five minutes to silence three years: Ibra's first derby in red and black

The club's Time Machine series revisits Ibrahimović's first Milan derby after three prolific seasons on the Inter side of San Siro. Within five minutes he had decided it: chasing a long ball on the left he drove at Lúcio and Materazzi, drew the foul from Materazzi, and coolly converted the penalty himself in front of the Curva Nord. Milan then defended the 1-0 for half an hour with ten men after Abate's second yellow, and the club's own history frames that derby win under new coach Allegri as a founding step on the road to the 18th Scudetto.

Zlatan Ibrahimović · Marco Materazzi · Massimiliano Allegri

Source: AC Milan official website — Time Machine series · Photo: Saggittarius A (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Rino the goalscorer: one of eleven in thirteen years

The official club archive marks the day Gattuso finally opened his Milan account: away at Bologna in February 2000, after Zaccheroni surprised everyone by picking him ahead of Helveg, Rino met a corner with a beautiful right-footed volley past Pagliuca. He even turned provider three minutes into the second half, crossing for Shevchenko before Bierhoff made it three in a wild 3-2 win. The club's punchline is the number itself: across 13 seasons and 468 official appearances of ferocious midfield destruction, Gattuso scored just 11 goals — which is exactly why the club still commemorates this one.

Gennaro Gattuso · Alberto Zaccheroni · Andriy Shevchenko · Oliver Bierhoff

Source: AC Milan official website — #OnThisDay history article · Photo: Chivista (German Wikipedia user) (CC BY-SA 3.0)

23 May, the date Milan never loses

The club's own history desk points out a calendar quirk: 23 May has delivered five separate Rossoneri triumphs. On that date Milan won its first Cup Winners' Cup in 1968 (a Hamrin double against Hamburg in Rotterdam), the 1990 European Cup against Benfica in Vienna (Rijkaard's goal), the centenary-year Scudetto sealed 2-1 at Perugia in 1999, and returned to the Champions League in 2021 with a Kessie double in Bergamo. Above all, 23 May 2007 was Athens: Inzaghi's two goals — a clever touch on Pirlo's free kick and a run onto Kaká's pass — beat Liverpool 2-1, avenging Istanbul and handing captain Maldini his fifth European Cup, in a season that had begun with a points deduction and an August qualifier just to enter the competition.

Filippo Inzaghi · Paolo Maldini · Andrea Pirlo · Kaká · Kurt Hamrin · …

Source: AC Milan official website — #OnThisDay history article · Photo: Delfort (CC BY-SA 3.0)

They called him Hollit — and his dog-bite prank floored the club doctor

In an official anniversary piece by club journalist Mauro Suma, Milan's long-time doctor Rodolfo Tavana recalls accompanying Gullit through his 1989 knee rehabilitation in Amsterdam and hearing Dutch fans shouting 'Hollit' — only for Gullit to explain, to the doctor's surprise, that this was simply how his name is pronounced in Dutch. The best gag came at Tavana's own dinner table: the doctor's big dog playfully nipped Gullit below the knee, and the next morning Gullit turned up at Milanello on crutches, deadpanning that Tavana's dog had injured Milan's star — letting the doctor nearly faint before bursting out laughing, then going out and scoring that Sunday. The same article preserves Sacchi's line to a benched Gullit: he caused such chaos beside the coach that Sacchi preferred him on the pitch.

Ruud Gullit · Rodolfo Tavana · Arrigo Sacchi

Source: AC Milan official website — passion120 anniversary series (by Mauro Suma) · Photo: Rob C. Croes / Anefo (Nationaal Archief) (CC0)