Sunday 11th January 2026 ko 20:45

Serie A

INTERNAZIONALE MILANO 2 (DiMarco10 Calmanoglou 72p)

SSC NAPOLI 2 (McTominay 26 81)

Antonio Conte (manager) sent off 71 (foul & abusive)

Att 72,567 at Stadio Guiseppe Meaza, San Siro, Milano

Entry €69

I remember the first game Robyn and I watched together, we got thoroughly soaked in suburban Cardiff, and I remarked how lucky I was to have a girlfriend that loved football. That was 10 years ago and Robyn is now my wife, but even after travelling all over Europe (and a visit to Morocco) she decided to celebrate the anniversary by surprising me with a trip to Milan to visit the San Siro. I’ll say it again- I’m a lucky boy!

She’d worked it all out, flying into Linate Airport as its on the Milan Metro, rather than the distant Malpensa and buying 3-day public transport passes on arrival. She booked us into a beautiful hotel close to the main railway station too; in fact the only thing neither of us considered was the tourist tax, ramped up presumably to take advantage of the imminent Winter Olympics in Milan/ Cortina. I’m used to the tax being barely noticable but €10 per person per night for our 4 star hotel was quite the revenue raiser for the authorities! But let’s face it, you tend to ignore such things when you’re planning a trip to the iconic San Siro!

Once all that was sorted out, tickets weren’t difficult to come by. We’d registered on the Inter website, that advised on when the tickets went on general sale, and we dived in the moment that came! You need your passport details to buy, and they’ll check your passport against your ticket at the ground too. Retrospect being what it is, it became clear that Robyn paid a premium for the fact that Inter were playing the reigning league champions.

For anyone living under a rock for the last few months, the news is that the stadium will not be around for much longer. The former tenants AC Milan and Internazionale have bought the stadium from Milan Council and once a new stadium has been built in what’s now the car park, the old ground will be demolished. The question was, why demolish such an iconic ground?

Let’s delve into the past, and answer a few questions on the way. What you see today is arguably 3 stadia in one. The bottom section dates from when the stadium was built in the district of San Siro in 1926 initially as a ground for AC Milan, when it was privately built by funding from Milan’s chairman at the time, Piero Pirelli. The stadium was owned by Milan until it was sold to the city in 1935 with Inter moving here in 1947 when they were accepted as joint tenant.

The second phase of building started in 1948 to increase the capacity from 50,000 to 150,000. This consisted of vertically arranged rings of spectator rows with 19 spiralling ramps, each 200 metres long to give access to the upper tiers, those spirals you can still see now. In 1980 the stadium was named after Giuseppe Meazza, one of the most well known Milanese footballers who played for both Milan and Inter. That said the name does seem more ingrained amongst Inter fans due to Meazza’s stronger connections with their club (14 years as a player, three stints as manager against 3 years as a player for Milan). Perhaps that’s why so many simply call the place San Siro!

The third tier was added for the 1990 World Cup Cup. Oddly it was built only on three of the four sides, in the two curves and in the west stand which rests on 11 support towers surrounded by spiral ramps that we climbed to gain access. Four of those towers were located at the corners to support a new roof with those oh-so distinctive protruding red girders. These days the capacity of the stadium is 75,817, the largest in Italy. And that gap where the 4th side of the top tier ought to be does give a lovely view of the Duomo di Milano!

But this the great temple of Italian football, where The Curva Sud is always taken by the Milan Ultras, with the opposite always taken by the Inter faithful. This is the hallowed turf of 244 Milanese derbies, of players too numerous to mention, so let’s go with the some of best players that turned out for both- Christian Vieri, Andrea Pirlo, Clarence Seedorf, Hernan Crespo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo. I could go on about the stands being untypically close to the pitch, unlike so many Italian municipal stadia, generating that wonderful atmosphere. Why demolish all this?

At the risk of being brutally unromantic (which would be rather ironic given how I came to be here) it’s because the grand old lady of Milan is really showing her age. Now it was a lot of fun walking the spirals to get to the top tier, and I loved taking the optical illusion video of people leaving afterwards, but that tier clearly isn’t accessible to anyone but the able bodied. If you want a drink, then you only have use of the four roof towers, and you have to climb the equivalent of a tier’s worth of stairs to get there. The toilets I used were of the squat variety but that €69 seat? Well that was behind a perspex screen with a framework impeding our view; yes the San Siro is an Italian icon but it is more than showing its age.

Our section did seem to attract the football tourists, an Italian lady asked Robyn how to find her seat, but since neither spoke the other’s language she moved on to a group to my left, turned out they were Mansfield Town fans, after trying above us only to find out they were Manchester United fans she gave up; how did she find her seat?

Mind you there were reasons why a Manchester United fan would want to be there, in the form of Henrikh Mkhitaryan for Inter, Rasmus Højlund and Scott McTominay for Napoli. The Scot in particular has found a new lease of life since leaving Old Trafford and was unquestionably the reason the visitors gained a point. His manager Antonio Conte, with a managerial history at Inter exploded at the VAR awarding of a fairly obvious penalty and took his dismissal with all the drama that a city that gave the world the La Scala Opera House could muster.

The atmosphere crackled, as two title hopefuls slugged out an entertaining draw and as type this the hosts look nailed on to win the Scudetto but as Robyn and I slowly descended back down our spiral ramp, we grinned at each other. Because as imperfect and outdated as the San Siro is, it had been quite the experience paying the place a visit.

Thanks, babe, love ya!