Grande Inter

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

The club was founded on 9 March 1908 as Football Club Internazionale, when a group of players left the Milan Cricket and Football Club (now AC Milan) to form a new club because they wanted to accept more foreign players. 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, who was later killed in battle while serving in the Italian army during World War I. In 1922, Inter was at risk of relegation to the Second Division of Northern League, but they remained in the top league after winning a single playoff against the Second Division champion. Six years later, during the Fascist era, the club merged with the Unione Sportiva Milanese and, for political reasons, was renamed Società Sportiva Ambrosiana. During the 1928–29 season, the team wore white jerseys with a red cross emblazoned on it; the jersey's design was inspired by the flag and coat of arms of the city of Milan. In 1929, the new club chairman Oreste Simonotti changed the club's name to Associazione Sportiva Ambrosiana and restored the previous black-and-blue jerseys; however, supporters continued to call the team Inter, and in 1931, new chairman Pozzani succumbed to shareholder pressure and changed the name to Associazione Sportiva Ambrosiana-Inter. Inter won its third championship titles in 1930 with the Hungarian coach Arpad Weisz in the first ever edition of Serie A, and the fourth in 1938 with former player Armando Castellazzi as a 33 years old coach, that set the record for the youngest coach ever to win the

In Their Own Story

The rain fell softly on the Wembley turf as the players gathered for the coin toss. Giacinto Facchetti tightened his laces, feeling the weight of the blue and black shirt against his chest. Across the pitch, the white giants of Real Madrid waited. There was no fear in the Nerazzurri eyes today, only the cold precision of Herrera's machine ready to strike. The whistle blew, beginning a night that would echo through history forever.

Reader's Guide

In 1960, manager Helenio Herrera joined Inter from Barcelona. In his first season as a coach in Milan, after having led the table for most of the season, lost the title in the last games of the season, with the infamous episode during Juventus–Inter held in Turin in April 1961 when the match was stopped after 30 minutes when Juventus supporters invaded the pitch, with Inter being awarded the game 2–0. Then, after two months, in June before the last decisive match of Serie A with the two teams tied in first place, the Italian Football Federation, presided by Juventus president Umberto Agnelli, decided that the match between the two teams had to be replayed after the last game scheduled for the season; with Inter loss and a draw for Juventus, the following match became useless and in open contestation Angelo Moratti ordered Herrera to put the Inter youth team against the Turinese squad: the match ended 9–1 for Juventus, with the only goal scored for Inter by an 18-year-old, the son of Valentino Mazzola, Sandro Mazzola who later would become one of the greatest legends in the history of the club. After his first season in Milan, Herrera brought with him for a record fee of 25 million pesetas Spanish midfielder Luis Suárez who won the European Footballer of the Year in 1960 for his role in Barcelona's La Liga/Fairs Cup double. Herrera would transform Inter into one of the leading teams in Europe that would win three Serie A titles in four years, two European Cups and two Intercontinental Cups in a row. He modified a 5–3–2 tactic known as the 'Verrou' ('door bolt'), which created greater flexibility for counterattacks. The catenaccio system was invented by an Austrian coach, 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.

Did You Know?

• Inter is the only team to have never been relegated from the top division of Italian football since its debut in 1909.
• The club's name Internazionale was chosen to reflect its founders' wish to accept foreign players as well as Italians.
• Giuseppe Meazza, after whom the San Siro stadium is officially named, scored 284 goals for Inter, a club record.
• Inter's 6–0 victory over Juventus in 1954 remains the club's biggest win in the Derby d'Italia.