San Siro

The Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, commonly known as San Siro, is a football stadium located in the San Siro district in Milan. It is the home of A.C. Milan and Inter Milan. It has an all-seater capacity of 80,018 making it one of the top ten largest stadia in Europe, and the largest stadium in Italy.

On 3 March 1980, the stadium was named in honour of Giuseppe Meazza, the two-time World Cup winner (1934, 1938) who played for Inter Milan and briefly for Milan in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

The San Siro is a UEFA category four stadium. It hosted six games at the 1990 FIFA World Cup and three UEFA Champions League finals in 1965, 1970 and 2001, and will host the 2016 UEFA Champions League Final.

The stadium is also used for concerts and other sporting events. Major acts such as The Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, U2, Robbie Williams, Muse, Tiziano Ferro, Jovanotti, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, One Direction, Madonna and Michael Jackson have performed here.

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 Italian stadiums built with public funds. The inauguration was on 19 September 1926, when 35,000 spectators saw Inter Milan defeat Milan 6–3. Originally, the ground was home and property of AC Milan. Finally, in 1947, Inter, who used to play in the classy Arena Civica downtown, became tenants and the two have shared the ground ever since.

UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League, known simply as the Champions League, is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs. It is one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world and the most prestigious club competition in European football, played by the national league champion (and, for some nations, one or more runners-up) of each UEFA national association. The final of the 2012–13 tournament was the most watched UEFA Champions League final to date, as well as the most watched annual sporting event worldwide in 2013, drawing 360 million television viewers.

Introduced in 1992, the competition replaced the European Champion Clubs' Cup, or simply European Cup, which had run since 1955, adding a group stage to the competition and allowing multiple entrants from certain countries. The pre-1992 competition was initially a straight knockout tournament open only to the champion club of each country. During the 1990s, the format was expanded, incorporating a round-robin group stage to include clubs that finished runner-up of some nations' top level league. While most of Europe's national leagues can still only enter their national league champion, Europe's strongest national leagues now provide up to four teams for the competition, and will provide up to five teams from the 2015–16 season onwards. Clubs that finish next-in-line in each nation's top level league, having not qualified for the UEFA Champions League competition, may be eligible for the next level UEFA Europa League competition.

Champions League

Champions League most commonly refers to the UEFA Champions League. It may also refer to:

Association football

A.C. Milan

Associazione Calcio Milan (Italian pronunciation: [assotʃatˈtsjoːne ˈkaltʃo ˈmiːlan]), commonly referred to as A.C. Milan or simply Milan, is a professional Italian football club based in Milan, Lombardy, that plays in Serie A. Milan was founded in 1899 by English lace-maker Herbert Kilpin and businessman Alfred Edwards among others. The club has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 1980–81 and 1982–83 seasons, in the top flight of Italian football, known as Serie A since 1929–30.

With 18 officially recognised UEFA and FIFA titles, they are the second most successful club in the world in terms of number of international titles, together with Boca Juniors and Real Madrid, and behind Al Ahly with twenty titles. Milan has won a joint record of three Intercontinental Cups and one of its successor, the FIFA Club World Cup. Milan have also won the European Cup/Champions League on seven occasions, second only to Real Madrid. They have also won the UEFA Super Cup a joint record five times and the Cup Winners' Cup twice. Milan has won every major competition in which it has competed, with the exception of the Europa League (in this competition they have lost two semi-finals in 1972 and in 2002). Domestically, with 18 league titles Milan is the joint-second most successful club in Serie A behind Juventus (31 titles), along with local rivals Inter. They have also won the Coppa Italia five times, as well as six Supercoppa Italiana triumphs.

Giuseppe Meazza

Giuseppe "Peppino" Meazza (Italian pronunciation: [dʒuˈzɛppe meˈattsa]; 23 August 1910 – 21 August 1979), also known as il Balilla, was an Italian footballer playing mainly for Internazionale in the 1930s, scoring 242 goals in 365 games for the club. He led Italy to win two consecutive World Cups: in 1934 on home soil, and in 1938 as captain, winning the Golden Ball Award in 1934. He is widely considered one of the best players of his generation, and among the greatest of all time, as well as being the greatest Italian player of all time to some. Due to his technical skill, prolific goalscoring, and creative ability, he was often given the nickname "il genio" (the genius) by the Italian press during his career. He has been ranked fourth-best player in the history of the World Cup. With 33 goals, Meazza is also the second highest goalscorer for the Italian national team, and with 216 goals in Serie A, he is the fourth all-time highest goal scorer in Serie A, alongside José Altafini. With 338 goals, he is the third-highest goalscoring Italian player in all competitions.