San Siro turned 100 on 19 September. A day later, just before kick-off against Lecce, AC Milan marked the occasion and got the party they wanted with a 3-0 win in front of 73,197 people.
Not many years remain for the ground itself. AC Milan and Inter have already bought it and are designing its replacement.
The stadium AC Milan built
It did not start as much of a celebration. At the opening on 19 September 1926 the hosts lost 6-3 to Inter in a friendly. Milan's president, Piero Pirelli, came up with the project and paid for it, according to the city's own records. Engineer Alberto Cugini and architect Ulisse Stacchini drew up the design, and the build took 13 months at a cost of 5 million lire. Four straight stands held 35,000 at first.
Milan's ownership did not last. The club sold the stadium to the city in 1935.
Inter moved in for the 1947-48 season. In 1980, a year after his death, the ground was officially named after Giuseppe Meazza, who played for both clubs.
What the club remembered
For the centenary Milan published a piece about its nights at San Siro. First among the matches it recalls in detail is 19 April 1989, when the Rossoneri thrashed Real Madrid 5-0 in the second leg of a European Cup semi-final with goals from Ancelotti, Rijkaard, Gullit, van Basten and Donadoni.
There is room for the derby of 22 October 1967 as well. Gianni Rivera's shot came down off the bar in front of the line, the referee gave the goal anyway and the game finished 1-1. In the club's telling, that incident was the birth of Italy's moviola, the slow-motion television replay used to pick apart controversial incidents.
Its choice from the 1990s is Roberto Baggio's goal against Parma on 24 March 1996, set up by Dejan Savićević, whom the piece calls il Genio, the Genius. That game ended 3-0. Gennaro Gattuso's sprint gets a single line, a burst straight after the final whistle of the Champions League semi-final second leg against Inter on 13 May 2003, which ended 1-1 and sent Milan through on away goals.
The anniversary night
Before the game on 20 September, archive footage was shown inside the ground as the story of the stadium was told. Ruben Amorim's side then scored three. Christian Pulisic opened the scoring in the 14th minute, and after the break Adrien Rabiot and Diego Moreira added two more, in the 61st and 73rd.
An official crowd of 73,197 meant the stadium was about 96.7 per cent full, the best attendance of the round according to News Tank Football's figures. After five rounds Milan sit fifth on 11 points. Amorim is only the third foreign coach in the club's history to go unbeaten through his first five Serie A games, after Luis Carniglia and Nils Liedholm.
San Siro has long been about more than football. Summer brings stadium concerts, and in February the arena staged the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. Plenty of fans who watch Milan at home on their phones keep the screen on after the final whistle, catching the replays or moving on to online casino games. Wild Tokyo Casino at https://wildtokyopokies.bet/ offers roulette and crash games for an evening like that.. How many more matches and concerts the current ground will host depends on the building schedule.
What happens to the stadium?
On 5 November 2025 Milan and Inter bought the stadium and the surrounding land from the city for €197,075,590 through a jointly owned company. Foster + Partners and MANICA are designing the new ground. Main construction is due to begin in the second half of 2027, with a view to opening in 2031, and the city has already approved its agreement with the Lombardy region on carrying out the project. That timetable is tied to Milan's bid to stage matches at Euro 2032, which Italy is co-hosting with Turkey, and for now the city is only a candidate. While the new ground goes up alongside, AC Milan and Inter will keep playing at the existing one.
Most of the current stadium will be knocked down. A section of the blue and orange sectors, together with the corner linking them, is to be kept and converted.
On 18 September the city opened the documents for the project's strategic environmental assessment, known as VAS, to public inspection, and Corriere della Sera reported on them the following day. The plans set a ceiling of 98,321 square metres of floor space for offices, hotels and retail. Each of the four layout scenarios includes nine main buildings of five to 17 storeys, and there is no final design yet.
