AC Milan
Associazione Calcio Milan, commonly referred to as Milan or AC Milan mainly outside of Italy, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Founded in 1899, the club competes in the Serie A, the top tier of Italian football. In its early history, Milan played its home games in different grounds around the city before moving to its current stadium, the San Siro, in 1926. The stadium, which was built by Milan's second chairman, Piero Pirelli, and has been shared with Inter Milan since 1947, is the largest in Italian football, with a total capacity of 75,817. The club has a long-standing rivalry with Inter, with whom they contest the Derby della Madonnina, one of the most followed derbies in football.
Milan has spent its entire history in Serie A with the exception of the 1980–81 and 1982–83 seasons. Silvio Berlusconi’s 31-year tenure as Milan president was a standout period in the club's history, as they established themselves as one of Europe's most dominant and successful clubs. Milan won 29 trophies during his tenure, securing multiple Serie A and UEFA Champions League titles. During the 1991–92 season, the club notably achieved the feat of being the first team to win the Serie A title without losing a single game. Milan is home to multiple Ballon d'Or winners, and three of the club's players, Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, and Frank Rijkaard, were ranked in the top three on the podium for the 1988 Ballon d'Or, an unprecedented achievement in the history of the prize.
Milan is one of the most successful football clubs in the world in terms of total trophies won. Domestically, Milan has won 19 league titles, 5 Coppa Italia titles and 8 Supercoppa Italiana titles. In international competitions, Milan is Italy's most successful club. The club has won seven European Cup/Champions League titles, making them the competition's second-most successful team behind Real Madrid, and further honours include five UEFA Super Cups, two UEFA Cup Winners' Cups, a joint record two Latin Cups, a joint record three Intercontinental Cups and one FIFA Club World Cup.
Milan is one of the wealthiest clubs in Italian and world football. It was a founding member of the now-defunct G-14 group of Europe's leading football clubs as well as its replacement, the European Club Association.
History
Foundation and early years (1899–1950)
AC Milan was founded as Milan Foot-Ball and Cricket Club in 1899 by English expatriate Herbert Kilpin. The club claims 16 December of that year as their foundation date, but historical evidence seems to suggest that the club was actually founded a few days after, most likely on 18 December. However, with the club's charter being lost, the exact date remains open to debate.In honour of its English origins, the club has retained the English spelling of the city's name, as opposed to the Italian spelling Milano, which it was forced to bear under the fascist regime. Milan won its first Italian championship in 1901, interrupting a three-year hegemony of Genoa, and a further two in succession in 1906 and 1907. The club proved successful in the first decade of its existence, with several important trophies won, including, among others, the Medaglia del Re three times, the Palla Dapples 23 times and the FGNI tournament five times, a competition organized by the Italian Gymnastics Federation but not officially recognized by the Italian Football Federation.
In 1908, Milan experienced a split caused by internal disagreements over the signing of foreign players, which led to the forming of another Milan-based team, F.C. Internazionale. Following these events, Milan did not manage to win a single domestic title until 1950–51, with some exceptions represented by the 1915–16 Coppa Federale and the 1917–18 Coppa Mauro, two tournaments played during the First World War which, especially the former, received a lot of attention and proved to be highly competitive, despite them not being officially recognized by the Italian federation.
Return to victory and international affirmation (1950–1970)
The 1950s saw the club return to the top of Italian football, headed by the famous Gre-No-Li Swedish trio Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm. This was one of the club's most successful periods domestically, with the Scudetto going to Milan in 1951, 1955, 1957 and 1959. This decade witnessed also the first European successes of Milan, with the 1951 and 1956 Latin Cup triumphs against Lille and Athletic Bilbao. Milan was also the first Italian club to take part to the newly born European Cup in the 1955–56 season, and reached the final two years later, when they were defeated by Real Madrid.The 1960s began with the debut of Milan's legend Gianni Rivera in 1960: he would remain with the club for the rest of his career for the following 19 seasons. In 1961, Nereo Rocco was appointed as new coach of the club, which under his leadership won immediately a scudetto in 1961–62, followed, in the next season, by Milan's first European Cup triumph, achieved after beating Benfica in the final. This success was repeated in 1969, with a 4–1 win over Ajax in the final, which was followed by the Intercontinental Cup title the same year. During this period Milan also won its ninth scudetto, its first Coppa Italia, with victory over Padova in the 1967 final, and two European Cup Winners' Cups in 1967–68 and 1972–73,
after defeating in the last match Hamburg and Leeds United respectively.
10th ''Scudetto'' and decline (1970–1986)
Domestically, the 1970s were characterized by the pursuit of the 10th Serie A title, which grants the winner the Scudetto star. For three years in a row, in 1971, 1972 and 1973, Milan ended up second in the league, after some memorable duels with Inter and Juventus. Finally, the achievement was reached in 1979. The same year saw the retirement of Gianni Rivera and the debut of Franco Baresi, at his first full season with the club.After this success, the team went into a period of decline. The club in 1980 was involved in the Totonero scandal and as punishment was relegated to Serie B for the first time in its history. The scandal was centred around a betting syndicate paying players and officials to fix the outcome of matches. Milan achieved promotion back to Serie A at the first attempt, winning the 1980–81 Serie B title, but were again relegated a year later as the team ended its 1981–82 campaign in third-last place. In 1983, Milan won the Serie B title for the second time in three seasons to return to Serie A, where they achieved a sixth-place finish in 1983–84.
Berlusconi's ownership and international glory (1986–2012)
On 20 February 1986, entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi acquired the club and saved it from bankruptcy after investing vast amounts of money, appointing rising manager Arrigo Sacchi at the helm of the Rossoneri and signing Dutch internationals Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard. The Dutch trio added an attacking impetus to the team, and complemented the club's Italian internationals Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Alessandro Costacurta and Roberto Donadoni. Under Sacchi, Milan won its first Scudetto in nine years in the 1987–88 season. The following year, the club won its first European Cup in two decades, beating Romanian club Steaua București 4–0 in the final. Milan retained their title with a 1–0 win over Benfica a year later and was the last team to win back-to-back European Cups until Real Madrid's win in 2017. The Milan team of 1988–1990, nicknamed the "Immortals" in the Italian media, has been voted the best club side of all time in a global poll of experts conducted by World Soccer magazine.File:Mauro Tassotti, Fabio Capello and Adriano Galliani with the UEFA Champions League trophy - 1994.jpg|thumb|upright|right|Mauro Tassotti holds the UEFA Champions League trophy along with manager Fabio Capello, following Milan's victory in the 1993–94 edition of the tournament.
After Sacchi left Milan in 1991, he was replaced by the club's former player Fabio Capello whose team won three consecutive Serie A titles between 1992 and 1994, a spell which included a 58-match unbeaten run in Serie A, and back-to-back UEFA Champions League final appearances in 1993, 1994 and 1995. A year after losing 1–0 to Marseille in the 1993 Champions League final, Capello's team reached its peak in one of Milan's most memorable matches of all time, the famous 4–0 win over Barcelona in the 1994 Champions League final. Capello's side went on to win the 1995–96 league title before he left to manage Real Madrid in 1996. In 1998–99, after a two-year period of decline, Milan lifted its 16th championship in the club's centenary season.
File:A.C. Milan lifting the European Cup after winning the 2002–03 UEFA Champions League - 20030528.jpg|thumb|left|Milan captain Paolo Maldini lifting the European Cup after they won the 2002–03 UEFA Champions League
Milan's next period of success came under another former player, Carlo Ancelotti. After his appointment in November 2001, Ancelotti took Milan to the 2003 Champions League final, where they defeated Juventus on penalties to win the club's sixth European Cup. The team then won the Scudetto in 2003–04 before reaching the 2005 Champions League final, where they were beaten by Liverpool on penalties despite leading 3–0 at half-time. Two years later, the two teams met again in the 2007 Champions League final, with Milan winning 2–1 to lift the title for a seventh time. The team then won its first FIFA Club World Cup in December 2007. In 2009, after becoming Milan's second longest serving manager with 420 matches overseen, Ancelotti left the club to take over as manager at Chelsea.
During this period, the club was involved in the Calciopoli scandal, where five teams were accused of fixing matches by selecting favourable referees. A police inquiry excluded any involvement of Milan managers; the Italian Football Federation unilaterally decided that it had sufficient evidence to charge Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani. As a result, Milan was initially punished with a 15-point deduction and was banned from the 2006–07 UEFA Champions League. An appeal saw that penalty reduced to eight points, which allowed the club to retain its Champions League participation.
Following the aftermath of Calciopoli, local rivals Internazionale dominated Serie A, winning four Scudetti. However, with the help a strong squad boasting players such as Zlatan Ibrahimović, Robinho and Alexandre Pato joining many of the veterans of the club's mid-decade European successes, Milan recaptured the Scudetto in the 2010–11 Serie A season, their first since the 2003–04 season and 18th overall.