Internazionale Milano F.C.: Encyclopedia II - Internazionale Milano F.C. - History

Internazionale Milano F.C. - History

Internazionale Milano F.C. - Pre First World War

The club was founded on March 9, 1908 following a schism from the Milan Cricket and Football Club, now known as AC Milan. A group of Italians and Swiss were unhappy about the domination of Italians in the AC Milan team, and broke away from them, leading to the creation of Internazionale. From the beginning, the club was open to foreign players and thus lived up to her founding name. The original nickname of the team in the Milano dialect was La Beneamata, the cherished.

The club won its very first championship in 1910 and its second in 1920. The Captain and the Coach of the first scudetto was Virgilio Fossati, born in Milan and brother of Giuseppe Fossati (who won the second Inter championship). Unfortunately Virgilio Fossati died during the First World War.

Internazionale Milano F.C. - Between the Wars

During the turbulent period between the First and Second World Wars, Internazionale was forced to change its name to Ambrosiana-Inter in order to accommodate the requests of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. However, Inter was still used to winning ways and captured its third league championship in the new Italian first division in 1930. Following that, a fourth league title was won in 1938, Inter's first Coppa Italia (Italian Cup) was won in 1940 and a fifth league championship followed in 1940. From 1942 onwards, the name Ambrosiana-Inter was dropped in favour of the original Internazionale Milano.

Internazionale Milano F.C. - La Grande Inter

Following the war, Inter won its sixth championship in 1953 and the seventh in 1954. Following these titles, Inter was to enter the best years of its history, affectionately known as the era of La Grande Inter (The Great Inter). During this magnificent period, the club won 3 league championships in 1963, 1965 & 1966. The most famous moments during this decade also include Inter's 2 back-to-back European Cup wins. In 1964, Inter won the first of those tournaments, playing against the famous Spanish club Real Madrid. The next season, playing in their own stadium, the San Siro, Inter won their second European Cup against Portuguese outfit Benfica. During that years many great players dressed the Neroazzuri shirt: Luis Suarez, Giacinto Facchetti, Sandro Mazzola, Angelo Domenghini, Mario Corso. The owner and president of the team was Angelo Moratti, father of the current owner. He offered enormous amounts of money to buy Eusebio and Pelé; both players agreed to move to Inter, but politics intervened. The military dictatorships of Portugal and Brazil both refused to sanction the moves, and both transfers fell through. In 1967, Inter lost 1-2 in the final of the European Cup against Celtic F.C..

Internazionale Milano F.C. - 1970 to date

Following the golden 1960s, Inter managed to win their 11th league title in 1971 and their 12th in 1980. Inter were defeated for the second time in five years in the final of the European Cup, going down 0-2 to Johan Cruijff's Ajax Amsterdam in 1972. During the 1970s & 1980s, Inter also added to it's Coppa Italia tally the second and third cups in 1978 and 1982 respectively. Inter won their most recent league championship in 1989, bringing their total tally of scudetti to 13. They sit third in the all-time list of most wins of the league championship, behind Juventus (28) and A.C. Milan (17).

Internazionale has also won the UEFA Cup on 3 occasions, all of them in the the space of fifteen years. The first was in the 1990-91 season in a two-legged final with AS Roma. In 1993-94, Inter did it again, this time against Austrian side Casino Salzburg. In a record third UEFA Cup victory, in the 1997-98 season, Inter beat SS Lazio in a one-match final played in the Parc des Princes, Paris.

Internazionale Milano F.C. - Other Historical Information

Inter holds a proud record of never having been relegated to Serie B (second division) in its entire existence. The fans hold this in high regard as Inter are only one of two clubs (the other being Juventus) that have been ever-present in Serie A. Juventus were nominally relegated in 1911 and 1913 but remained at the first level in Piemonte Regional League in 1911, and in the Lombardia Regional League in the 1913; in addition, they didn't finish the championship in 1908.

The current honorary president and owner of Inter is Massimo Moratti. His father, Angelo Moratti was the president of Inter during the golden era of the 1960s. Massimo, trying to emulate his father's great success, has spent a great deal of money to bring some of the world's best players to the club without managing to secure that elusive fourteenth championship.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki