SAN SIRO

Description

Essentials about San Siro in brief

With around 80,000 seats, the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium (also called “San Siro”) is the largest and also the most famous soccer stadium in soccer-crazy Italy. The stadium is the home ground of the two famous Milanese soccer clubs AC Milan and Inter Milan, who play their home games here alternately at the weekend. For soccer fans, a visit to this soccer temple is a must when traveling to Milan, preferably of course for an AC or Inter Milan game. If you can’t get tickets, you can also visit San Siro on a guided tour.

The history of San Siro

The Giuseppe Meazza Stadium was built in 1925/26 and opened on September 19, 1926 with the city derby between AC Milan and Inter Milan. At the time, the stadium had a capacity of around 10,000 seats, which was increased in the course of two expansions to 100,000 seats in the mid-1950s. San Siro received its current appearance on the occasion of the 1990 World Cup in Italy. At that time, a third tier was added to the stadium, which is held up by a total of eleven towers, four of which project visibly into the stadium interior and also support the steel framework of the glass roof. In the course of the reconstruction, the number of spectators dropped to about 85,000.

Even today, the stadium is often referred to by its old name, “San Siro”, after the district in which it is located. In 1980, the stadium was renamed in honor of Giuseppe Meazza, a Milanese soccer player who had died shortly before.

Currently, there are plans by the two Milan soccer clubs to demolish the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium and build a new stadium on the site. Whether and when these will be carried out remains to be seen.

Visiting San Siro

During a guided tour of San Siro, soccer fans can walk the path of the players, from the dressing rooms through the mixed zone and the field entrance tunnel onto the magical San Siro pitch. Afterwards, the guided tour leads through the stands (including the VIP stand) to the joint museum of Inter and Milan, where visitors can immerse themselves in the long and eventful history of the two Milanese clubs through trophies, historic jerseys, shoes and souvenirs of various kinds.