Inter vs. Bayern at San Siro: Loud, steep, mythical

The Stadio Giuseppe Meazza – better known as the San Siro – is an iconic football ground with a rich history that was once built as a gift to AC Milan and later became the joint home with Inter. The scene of countless European highlights, including Bayern’s 2001 Champions League crowning, and legendary World Cup moments in 1990, it still exudes an almost mythical aura today. Now ‘football’s opera house’ is the venue for Bayern’s Champions League quarter-final second leg, which the Bavarians must win after losing 2-1 to Inter in the first leg. And it could be their last visit to the San Siro, with a new stadium planned on the same site after the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Return to a special place

Italy's first football-only stadium was a gift to AC Milan. Piero Pirelli, the car tyre mogul and president of AC, built a stadium for 35,000 people in the San Siro district in 1926. The way football stadiums were built back then was with a covered main stand and corners open to the sky. A small church gave its name to the neighbourhood and the stadium. In 1947, the city took over the stadium and rivals Inter, Bayern’s opponents on Wednesday, moved in. After the first remodelling, the stands behind the goals were now just as high as the straights, Italy's first floodlights were installed and suddenly there was room for 65,000 people in la scala del calcio, football’s opera house.

The stadium saw its first European final in 1964/65, when Inter defeated Benfica 1-0 in the European Cup. A total of eight continental finals have been held at the San Siro to date (2x European Champions Cup, 2x Champions League, 4x UEFA Cup first or second legs). The most recent European final contested there was actually by two other city rivals, as Real Madrid beat Atlético Madrid on penalties.

Italian structure with a German football soul

The impressive concrete structure, which, when you step out of the underground station of the same name, etches itself into the memory of fans like a landed spaceship, was also given a German soul in the magical World Cup summer of 1990. Germany played five of their seven games in Milan during their run to the final, with nine goals scored by the players who were part of the Inter dei tedeschi (Inter of the Germans) at the time in Jürgen Klinsmann, Andreas Brehme and Lothar Matthäus. For them, the special acoustics created by the completely enclosed stands, the steep, narrow tiers, the steel colossus as a roof and the overall character of this stadium were no longer unsettling. “The San Siro is a difficult stadium. If you have the right personality, it helps you. If not, it can be terrible to have to play there,” Milan legend Paolo Maldini once said.  

Even more powerful, more monstrous

For that World Cup, the San Siro became even more powerful, more monstrous, as a third level was added on top of 11 concrete towers, and the stadium has had a capacity of 85,000 since then. To this day, it is the largest stadium in Italy. It has been named after Giuseppe Meazza since the 1980s in the search for a name that stands for AC and Inter, who both call the stadium home. The 1934 World Cup winner with Italy represented both Milan clubs, although more so for the Nerazzuri, which is why the Milanisti now prefer to speak of the San Siro. When fans stream onto or off the stands via the spiral stair towers in the corners, the result is an optical illusion as if the towers are rotating.

“The Giuseppe Meazza was sold out every weekend, whether in Serie A, for European matches or the special encounters against Napoli and Diego Maradona. The stadium was my living room, like Wimbledon for Boris Becker,” Matthäus said in an interview with fcbayern.com. “We won the title there against Napoli and I played perhaps my best international match for the national team against Yugoslavia at the 1990 World Cup.” In Matthäus' time, the stadiums were often more sedate. “There was usually a running track around the pitch,” he said. The Guiseppe Meazza was and is different. “A large, narrow stadium with steep stands. When you feel the support of the fans, you feel strong. When you are successful, you can rise above yourself. That gives you a certain sense of security, a help that lets you run a step faster and makes your focus even stronger. You approach the games in this stadium with strength that you wouldn't otherwise have,” said the 1990 World Cup-winning captain, who played 154 competitive matches for Inter.

At least 90 minutes against Inter

It was in Milan’s iconic stadium, right next to a racecourse and the houses of the former working-class district of San Siro, that Bayern won their fourth European Cup in 2001 against Valencia. Oliver Kahn made three saves in the penalty shootout. Bayern will return to the site of this triumph for at least 90 minutes against Inter on Wednesday, which the German record champions must win to have a chance of reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League after losing 2-1 in the first leg. It could be the very last time at the San Siro. The stadium is still planned as the venue for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics next year, after which its partial demolition is set to begin. A completely new, modern stadium is to be built on the same site.

Raimond Aumann knows what it takes to win at the San Siro: