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Milan’s San Siro stadium is in for a final hurrah as the opening ceremony for the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will likely be the last event of major global significance held at the iconic stadium.
The 99-year-old arena is home to soccer clubs Inter Milan and AC Milan, which completed the purchase of San Siro and the surrounding area from the city in November.
The clubs plan to knock it down and build a new stadium for when Italy co-hosts the 2032 European Championship with Turkey.
San Siro has a capacity of just under 76,000, though that will be reduced to 60,000 for the opening ceremony.
Here’s some things to know about the historic venue:
Technically it’s not San Siro
The stadium was originally named after the San Siro district of Milan where it is located. However, the name was officially changed to Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in 1980, several months after the legendary Milanese soccer player died.
Meazza, who was also two-time World Cup winner with Italy, spent most of his career at Inter and had a two-year spell at Milan.
He also managed Inter on three separate occasions. It is more common for Inter fans to refer to the stadium as the Meazza, than Milan fans, although most still call it simply San Siro.
The arena is also nicknamed “La Scala del calcio” (La Scala of soccer) after the famous Milanese opera house.
The rise of an icon
The stadium was built in a record time of 13 months, between August 1925 and September 1926 — making it the fifth oldest stadium still in use in Italy.
However, it looked little like it currently does.
The then president of AC Milan, Piero Pirelli, was a huge fan of English soccer and took inspiration from those stadiums. San Siro originally had four separate stands and was designed purely for soccer, without an athletics track.
It did have links with another sport, however, as it served the needs of the nearby horseracing track. While some of the spaces under the stands were used as dressing rooms, showers and management offices, others functioned as stables, barns and storage rooms for fodder.
San Siro originally had a capacity of 35,000 although that was extended to 55,000 in 1935 when the curved edges linking the stands were built, shortly after the city council purchased the stadium from Milan.
In 1947, Inter joined Milan as tenants of San Siro and shortly after the second ring was added, with the work completed in 1955, and taking the capacity to over 80,000.
For more than three decades San Siro remained largely unchanged until its last major renovation, just before the 1990 World Cup, that saw it take on the form that is globally recognized.
A third tier was built (only on three sides), supported by the now-iconic cylindrical towers arranged around the stadium which give access to the stands. Four of those 11 towers also hold up the large supporting beams for the new roof.
Not just soccer
San Siro was inaugurated on Sept. 19, 1926 when Inter beat Milan 6-2 in a friendly match. It held its first league game the following month, when Milan also lost — 2-1 to Sampierdarenese.
The stadium has also hosted a number of Italy games as well as three matches during the 1934 World Cup and six during the 1990 edition. Three matches during the 1980 European Championship took place at San Siro.
Rugby and boxing have also taken place at San Siro, which has also held numerous concerts featuring Italian and international artists such as: Vasco Rossi, Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Madonna and The Rolling Stones.
The stadium was supposed to host the 2027 Champions League final, but uncertainty over the timetable for planned works forced UEFA to pull the plan two years ago.
