History
Construction of the stadium commenced in 1925 in the district of Milan named San Siro, with the new stadium originally named "Nuovo Stadio Calcistico San Siro" (San Siro New Football Stadium). The idea to build a stadium in the same district as the horse racing track, belongs to the man who then was the president of AC Milan, Piero Pirelli. The architects designed a private stadium only for football, without the athletics tracks which characterized the Italian stadia built with public funds. The inauguration was on September 19, 1926, when 35,000 spectators saw Internazionale defeat Milan 6–3. Originally, the ground was home and property of AC Milan. In 1947 Internazionale became tenants and the two have shared the ground ever since.
As well as being used by Milan and Inter, the Italian national team also plays occasional games there and it has also been used for the 1965, 1970, and 2001 UEFA Champions League finals. The stadium was also used for Internazionale's UEFA Cup finals when played over home and away legs but has never featured since the competition changed to a single final structure in 1997–98.
The stadium underwent further renovations for the 1990 World Cup with $60 million being spent, bringing the stadium up to UEFA category four standard. As part of the renovations, the stadium became all seated, with an extra tier being added to three sides of the stadium. This entailed the building of 11 concrete towers around the outside of the stadium. Four of these concrete towers were being located at the corners to support a new roof which has distinctive protruding red girders.
Inter is in the process of new stadium feasibility studies.
The first Rugby Union international at the San Siro took place when Italy played New Zealand national rugby union team in the 2009 end of year rugby tests.
Read more about this topic: San Siro
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something that in an ethical society would not need to exist. If people could deal with one another honestly, they would not need agents.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)