San Siro

45°28′41″N 9°7′26″E / 45.47806°N 9.12389°E / 45.47806; 9.12389

San Siro is a football stadium in the San Siro district of Milan, Italy. Nicknamed La Scala del calcio (English: La Scala of Football), it has a seating capacity of 75,817, making it the largest stadium in Italy and one of the largest stadiums in Europe. It is the home stadium of the city's principal professional football clubs, AC Milan and Inter Milan, who contest the Derby della Madonnina.

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 (and briefly for other teams like Milan) in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and served two stints as Inter's manager.

The San Siro is a UEFA category four stadium. It hosted three games at the 1934 FIFA World Cup, the opening ceremony and six games at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, three games at the UEFA Euro 1980 and four European Cup finals, in 1965, 1970, 2001 and 2016. The stadium will also host the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo.

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 belonged to the president of AC Milan at the time, Piero Pirelli. The architects designed a private stadium only for football, without athletics tracks which characterised Italian stadiums built with public funds. The design took inspiration from English football stadiums with four separated stands. The inauguration was on 19 September 1926, when 35,000 spectators saw Inter defeat Milan 6–3. Originally, the ground was home and property of Milan, then acquired by the City Council in the 1930s, where a capacity expansion of seats was developed connecting already-existing four stands in the corners. This historic setting was then called as the first tier. Finally, in 1947, Inter, who used to play in the Arena Civica downtown, became tenants and the two have shared the ground ever since.

From 1948 to 1955 engineers Armando Ronca and Ferruccio Calzolari developed the project for the second extension of the stadium, which was meant to increase the capacity from 50,000 to 150,000 visitors. Calzolari and Ronca proposed three additional, vertically arranged, rings of spectator rows. Nineteen spiralling ramps – each 200 metres long – gave access to the upper tiers, popularly called "the second ring". During construction, the realisation of the highest of the three tiers was abandoned and the number of visitors limited to 100,000. Then for security reasons, the capacity was reduced to 60,000 seats and 25,000 standing.

On 2 March 1980 the stadium was named for Giuseppe Meazza (1910–1979), one of the most famous Milanese footballers. For a time, Inter fans called the stadium Stadio Meazza due to Meazza's stronger connections with Inter (14 years as a player, three stints as manager). However, in recent years both Inter and Milan fans have called the stadium simply San Siro.

The last major renovation for the San Siro, which cost $60 million, was in of 1987–1990, for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. It was decided to modernise the stadium by increasing its capacity to 85,000 spectators and building a cover. The Municipality of Milan entrusted the work to the architects Giancarlo Ragazzi and Enrico Hoffer, and to the engineer Leo Finzi. To increase capacity, a third tier was built (only on three of the four sides, in the two curves and in the west grandstand) which rests on eleven support towers surrounded by helical ramps that allow access to the public. Four of these eleven concrete towers were located at the corners to additionally support a new roof, which has distinctive protruding red girders.