Classic Clubs :Inter Milan

Internazionale Milano Football Club, commonly known as "Inter" for short, came into existence on 9 March 1908 in the back room of the "L'Orologiaio" ("the clock") restaurant in Milan, under the impetus of dissident members of the "Milan Cricket and Football Club," the ancestors of the present day AC Milan.

These members were in dispute with MCFC's management, as they wanted to open up the club to foreign players at a time when it was strictly reserved for Italians. For this reason, when the breakaway club's statutes and famous blue-and-black strip were set at this meeting, the word "Internazionale" was included into the name.

Due to a lack of financial resources, the club's early days were tough, so much so that the players even had to pay for their own shirts and boots. Within two years, however, Inter had won their first title, even if the term "scudetto" had not yet been coined.

When the fascists came to power in Italy, the word "Internazionale" was deemed to be a reference to the international communist movement and, in 1932, Inter were forced to merge with the Milanese Unione Sportiva to become Ambrosiana-Inter until the fall of the regime.

Four of the players (Allemandi, Castellazzi, Demaria and Meazza) from the Squadra Azzurra side that triumphed at the 1934 FIFA World Cup in Italy were supplied by Inter, as were a further quartet (Ferrari, Ferraris II, Locatelli and Meazza again) for the FIFA World Cup in France four years later.

Two personalities have left a particularly powerful mark on Inter's history. The first was the truly gifted Giuseppe Meazza, scorer of 283 goals in 408 games for the club. In 1979, a year after his death, the San Siro was renamed in his honour, with the agreement of the ground's co-occupants AC Milan, despite the strong rivalry between the two clubs.

In the Sixties, under the chairmanship of Angelo Moratti, father of the current chairman Massimo Moratti, Inter enjoyed their golden age under the management of the "magus" Helenio Herrera, the inventor of the Catenaccio. In the space of four years between 1963 and 66, Inter won practically everything there was to win (three Scudetti, two European Cups, and two Intercontinental Cups) by perfecting this ultra-defensive and unspectacular tactical system.

In 1998, Ronaldo became the first Inter player ever to win the FIFA World Player award, but the club is still struggling to recreate its past glories. Massimo Moratti, who let the chairmanship pass to Giacinto Facchetti in 2004 while remaining the club's owner, still dreams of emulating his father's epic sixties adventure.