F.C. Internazionale Milano

 Football Club Internazionale Milano is an Italian football club based in Milan, Lombardy, which plays in Serie A. The club was founded March 9, 1908. In Italy it is commonly known as Inter or Internazionale, but it is often named Inter Milan in English-speaking countries.

Inter has been one of the most successful clubs in the history of Italian football, having won 15 Scudetti, 5 Coppa Italia, and 3 Italian Super Cups (as of April 22, 2007). Inter has also won 2 European Cups (Champions League), 3 UEFA Cups, and has been World Champions two times. In Italy, Inter also had the distinction of being the only team to have always played in the top division, though in 1922 they had been initially relegated, and later restored to the first division, due to the so-called Compromesso Colombo

The club wears blue and black stripes, which gives the origin of their Nerazzurri nickname. Inter has one of the biggest fan bases in Italy, along with its two biggest rivals, AC Milan and Juventus.

According to The Football Money League published by consultants Deloitte, in season 2005-06 Inter were the 7th highest earning football club in the world with an estimated revenue of €206.6 million.

Inter is a member of the G-14 organisation of leading European clubs.

 History

Pre-Second World War

The club was founded on March 9, 1908, following a "schism" from the Milan Cricket and Football Club, now known as A.C. Milan. A group of Italians and Swiss (Giorgio Muggiani, a painter who also designed the club's logo, Bossard, Lana, Bertoloni, De Olma, Enrico Hintermann, Arturo Hintermann, Carlo Hintermann, Pietro Dell'Oro, Ugo and Hans Rietmann, Voelkel, Maner, Wipf, and Carlo Ardussi) were unhappy about the domination of Italians in the AC Milan team, and broke away from them, leading to the creation of Internazionale. From the beginning, the club was open to foreign players and thus lived up to her founding name.

The club won its very first Scudetto (championship) in 1910 and its second in 1920. The captain and coach of the first Scudetto was Virgilio Fossati, who was killed in World War I. Its first Coppa Italia (Italian Cup) was won in 1938-39, led by the great legend Giuseppe Meazza, for whom the San Siro stadium is officially named, and a fifth league championship followed in 1940, despite an injury to Meazza. During the Fascist era, the name "Internazionale" was not looked upon kindly, and the club played as Ambrosiana, wearing white shirts emblazoned with a red cross. In 1932, the club was permitted to append its old moniker, and was known as Ambrosiana-Inter. Finally in 1942, the club reverted to its original name, Internazionale.

La Grande Inter

Following the war, Inter won its sixth championship in 1953 and the seventh in 1954. Following these titles, Inter was to enter the best years of its history, affectionately known as the era of La Grande Inter (The Great Inter). During this magnificent period, with Helenio Herrera as head coach, the club won 3 league championships in 1963, 1965 and 1966. The most famous moments during this decade also include Inter's 2 back-to-back European Cup wins. In 1964, Inter won the first of those tournaments, playing against the famous Spanish club Real Madrid. The next season, playing in their home stadium, the San Siro, they defeated two-time former champion, Benfica.

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 Cruijff's Ajax Amsterdam in 1972. During the 1970s and the 1980s, Inter also added two to its Coppa Italia tally, in 1977-78 and 1981-82.

Dark Period

The 1990s spelt a dark period for the Inter supporter. Whilst their great rivals AC Milan and Juventus were achieving success both domestically and in Europe, Inter were left behind, with some mediocre positions in the standings, their worst coming in 1994 when they finished just 1 point from relegation. In the 1990s though Inter did achieve some minor European success with 3 UEFA Cup victories in 1991, 1994 and 1998. With Massimo Moratti's takeover from Ernesto Pellegrini in 1995 Inter were promised more success with many high profile signings like Ronaldo, Christian Vieri and Hernan Crespo, with Inter twice breaking the world's record transfer fee in this period. However the 1990s remained a decade of disappointment and is the only decade in Inter's history in which they did not win a single Italian Serie A Championship. They were only 45 minutes away from capturing the Scudetto on May 5, 2002 when they needed to maintain a 2-1 advantage over Lazio at Rome's Olimpico stadium when Inter collapsed and let in three second half Lazio goals that enabled Juventus to pip their bitter rivals to the championship.

Resurrection

On June 15, 2005, Inter won the Coppa Italia, defeating AS Roma in the two-legged final 3-0 on aggregate (1-0 win in Milan and 2-0 win in Rome) and followed that up on 20th August 2005, by winning the Supercoppa Italiana after an extra-time 1-0 victory against original 04-05 Serie A champions Juventus (before being stripped of this title). This Super Cup win was Inter's first since 1989, coincidentally the same year since Inter last won the Scudetto before 2006. On 11 May 2006, Inter retained their Coppa Italia trophy by once again, defeating AS Roma with a 4-1 aggregate victory (A 1-1 scoreline in Rome and a 3-1 win at the Giuseppe Meazza, San Siro).

Inter was awarded the 2005-06 Serie A championship as they were the highest placed side (3rd) in the season's final league table after points were stripped from Juventus and AC Milan - both sides involved in the match fixing scandal that year. On 14th July 2006, The Italian Federal Appeal Commission found Serie A clubs Juventus, Lazio, Fiorentina, Reggina and AC Milan guilty of match-fixing and charged the 5 clubs with their respective punishments, (although all charges were later reduced in some capacity). So with the confirmed relegation of Juventus to Serie B (for the first ever time in their history) and the 8-point deduction for city rivals AC Milan, Inter became favourites to retain their Serie A title for the upcoming 2006-07 Serie A season.

During the season, Inter went on an incredible record-breaking run of 17 consecutive victories in Serie A, starting on September 25 2006 with a 4-1 home victory over Livorno, and ending on February 28, 2007, after a 1-1 draw at home to Udinese. The 5-2 away win at Catania on February 25 2007 broke the original records of 15 matches held by Bayern Munich & Real Madrid from the "Big 5" (the top flight leagues in England, Italy, Spain, France & Germany). The run lasted for almost 5 months and makes Inter the record holder for the number of consecutive wins in the "Big 5" and holds among the best in European league football, with just Benfica (29 wins), Celtic (25 wins) and PSV Eindhoven (22 wins) bettering the run. Inter's form dipped a little as they scored draws against teams which they should have won. They couldn't keep their invincible form near the end of the season as well, as they lost their first game of the domestic season to Roma in the San Siro 3-1 thanks to two late Roma goals. Inter had enjoyed an unbeaten Serie A run for just under a year.

On April 22, 2007 Inter were crowned Serie A champions for the 2nd consecutive season after defeating Siena 2-1 at Stadio Artemio Franchi. Italian World Cup winning defender Marco Materazzi scored both goals in the 18th and 60th minute, with the latter being a penalty. This is the first time Inter have won the Scudetto, based on their league performance since 1989. In addition, within hours after clinching their 2nd consecutive league title, the club confirmed head coach Roberto Mancini had signed a 4-year extension to his current contract, with an option to extend it for a further 12 months, which, if extended, would expire at the end of the 2011-12 campaign.^[1] Inter president Massimo Moratti claimed that this contractual agreement was made "some time ago".^[2]

Other historical information

Inter has never been relegated to a tier lower than the top flight in their entire history, which dates back all the way to 1908; a fact Nerazzurri fans hold in high regard. As of 2007, following Juve's relegation to Serie B for the 2006-07 season (see this article for more information) Inter remain the only Italian club for which that can be said.

The current honorary president and owner of Inter is Massimo Moratti. His father, Angelo Moratti, was the president of Inter during the club's golden era of the 1960s. Massimo, trying to emulate his father's great success, has spent an enormous amount of money in his time at the club to sign some of the world's best players in past and present generations, in an effort to win the scudetto for the first time since 1989. A 14th Scudetto did arrive, although via the courts after the Calciopoli scandal in 2006, but a 15th came in 2007, and this time under normal circumstances.

Rivalry

Inter has several principal rivalries, most obviously arch-enemies AC Milan. The most notorious scoreline in the history of this fixture came in 3 March of 1918, when Milan thrashed Inter 8 goals to 1. The rivalry is especially heated since Inter broke off from AC Milan. Inter was seen as the club of the bourgeoisie (nicknamed bauscia, a Milanese term meaning "braggart"), whereas AC Milan was the working-class team (nicknamed casciavit, meaning in the Milanese dialect "screwdrivers", with both reference to the workers that using these instruments, and to "awkwards") and was, and still is, mostly supported by migrants from Southern Italy.

During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Inter was the more successful club, being World Champions twice in the sixties. However in recent times Silvio Berlusconi's Milan has been the more dominant team. This rivalry has been compounded by AC Milan acquiring a few Inter players in recent years with mixed results. Milan paid Inter a relatively cheap price for players such as Clarence Seedorf and Andrea Pirlo, whom it managed to turn into world-class performers. However, in the summer of 2005 Milan snatched from Inter then world-class Italian international Christian Vieri, who had failed to find success at Inter. This season, Inter have claimed the bragging rights, winning both competitive fixtures between the two; 4-3 and 2-1.

Another Inter rival, Juventus, were the only other club to have never been relegated, which changed with the match-fixing scandal of 2006 as Juve were relegated to Serie B. Matches with Juventus are generally referred to by the Italian press as Derby d'Italia (The great Italian derby) because of the fact both teams were, before 2006, the only ones not to have ever been relegated.