As San Siro turns 100, AC Milan and Inter prepare to build a new home

After his 663rd and last match for his beloved AC Milan, Alessandro Costacurta had a final wish. He wanted one more kick around in his second home: the San Siro.

Only his defensive teammates Paolo Maldini (902) and Franco Baresi (719) have played more matches for the Rossoneri. Costacurta won 24 trophies in his 22 seasons there from 1986 to 2007, securing his place among the club's immortals. Towards the end of his career when it came time to renew his contract, the center back used to hand the board a signed blank sheet of paper. They could put in any number they wished and he'd continue playing.

"I never really thought that the money was the most important thing," Costacurta tells ESPN. "I was happy on the pitch, I wasn't ready for a change, I'd earned good money, and this was about continuing to play for my club at San Siro."

As he hung up his boots, he wanted to share the experience with his friends.

"I asked to have the stadium to myself," Costacurta says. "I invited a group of friends that had never played at San Siro, and I'm talking about my butcher, someone from the bank. We played 11 against 11; white jersey vs. red-and-black jersey, with no fans in the stands. It was a dream come true for them, and for me, to show them San Siro."

This weekend, San Siro celebrates its 100th birthday; it will be packed with nostalgia both for the celebrations on Sept. 19, and AC Milan's match with Lecce on Sept. 20. But it's an endangered stadium. The ground still stands beautifully tall complete with its famous spiral columns and red lattice, but before the end of the year, the facade for AC Milan and Internazionale's new home will be unveiled.

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Back in 2023, ESPN covered the various issues around the Milan stadium -- it was no longer fit for purpose, and AC and Inter were missing out on valuable income. It's been a polarizing debate. Some believe the beautiful stadium should be held in the same regard as the "Duomo, the Scala or Leonard's Last Supper," as Luigi Corbani, the former deputy mayor of Milan and president of Comitato Si Meazza, told ESPN in 2023.

Regardless, AC and Inter knew they could no longer stay at San Siro in its current state. They had four options: bulldoze it and build a new stadium on the same plot; renovate it; build a new stadium adjacent to the old one and then knock it down; or eke out a few more years while looking for an alternative location. After much debate and bureaucracy, they went for option C.

"It's helical ramps and vertical towers are a manifesto of Milanese architecture," Corbani says. "Why demolish a historic stadium that works well and has always been sold out since the beginning of the season?"

Enjoy San Siro while you can; it won't be around for much longer.

"San Siro is one of the most iconic places on earth," Costacurta says. "I've played against and with some amazing players there. People call it the Scala del Calcio ['Cathedral of Football']."

"The soul of San Siro will live on"

San Siro has been the home for AC Milan since 1926 when Piero Pirelli -- then-president of the club and son of Giovanni Pirelli, founder of the famous tyre company -- built the ground. Their first match on Sept 19, 1926, came against neighbors Inter, with Inter winning 6-3 -- Inter didn't move in until 1947.

The stadium's iconic middle tier, complete with those famous 11 towers and spirals, was added in 1955, taking the capacity from 35,000 to 85,000, AC Milan supporters all eager to catch a glimpse of Gre-No-Li (the famous Swedish attacking trio of Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm).

In 1980, the stadium was renamed the "Stadio Giuseppe Meazza" after the striker who made 408 appearances for Inter and played two seasons in the red and black of AC Milan. The top tier of the stadium, complete with the iconic red girders and finishing the spaceship aesthetic, was brought in ahead of the 1990 FIFA World Cup.

"San Siro is special," former AC Milan midfielder Demetrio Albertini, who played there from 1988-2002, tells ESPN. "The stadium is obviously iconic, full of emotions and feelings that will stay with me over time. Perhaps the ones that left the deepest mark on me are the Bernabéu [Real Madrid] and Camp Nou [Barcelona] -- both very iconic in their own right, but different. The fans are different too; ours are more passionate, the emotions more intense."

Costacurta knows every brick of the San Siro and the intensity of playing within its iconic walls.

"Some love that pressure or fear it, but I found it almost emotional," he says. "And from then on, I had to play for AC Milan in that stadium. It gave me a push -- from 13 to 19 [years old] that's all I thought about, to be able to stand there, in red and black, and pass the ball to my teammates.

"When you stand in the tunnel waiting to go onto the pitch, you get a bit of a stomach ache. You feel it inside you. Then when you score, or do something well, you hear the roar. I've played at Wembley, the Santiago Bernabéu, Camp Nou, but there's nothing like the roar you hear in San Siro. I still remember it 19 years on, it's unique."

Albertini, who made 406 appearances for Milan from 1988 to 2002, adds: "The emotion of San Siro never leaves you even after playing so many matches there. You can feel it when the crowd reacts to a poor performance, just as you feel the energy building before kickoff. I never got used to it, in either direction. I always tried to channel that emotion and use it to perform better."

He also remembers his last lap of the stadium after his final match in 2002, with thousands of fans sticking around to applaud him off. The same goes for Costacurta, whose curtain call came in match No. 663 against Udinese on May 19, 2007.

"It was the first time I really saw the gratitude of our fans towards me, maybe something I had not noticed throughout my career until that very moment," Costacurta says. "We had been friends -- the fans and me -- for 20 years, but with friendship, sometimes you struggle to let everything out. But in that match we did. When I left the stadium for the final time, there were 10,000 fans waiting for me. I couldn't drive my car, there were so many [people]: it was such an incredible show of affection."

More recently, Costacurta reminisces about the 2003 Champions League semifinal against Inter, which finished 1-1 but AC Milan won on away goals. Two years later in a derby, Milan goalkeeper Dida was hit in the head by a flare, an occasion immortalized in that famous photo of Rui Costa and Marco Materazzi taking in the site of San Siro pitch covered in red smoke.

"At AC Milan we always wanted to put on a show," Costacurta says. "We wanted to be the strongest team in the world, but also play the most entertaining football. We were elegant."

"I understand why the club needs to move forward"

Their legends transcend bricks and mortar, and memories will hold of them in AC Milan's new home. However, the debate over what to do with the San Siro has dominated talk in Milan over the past decade or so.

The ground is undoubtedly a part of Milan's rich history and cultural tapestry, but there was also the practical view: the beloved stadium was old-fashioned, and both its tenants AC Milan and Internazionale were missing out on valuable commercial and corporate opportunities. They looked enviously at Tottenham's new stadium; RedBird, AC Milan's owners, knew the Rossoneri needed a new home.

Their neighbors agreed.

The final nail in San Siro's coffin came in September, 2024, when UEFA stripped Milan of its hosting rights for the 2027 Champions League final, with the ground in its current state also out of the running for Euro 2032.

AC and Inter bought the land off the council last November for €197 million -- clearing one bureaucratic hurdle. Construction of the new Milan stadium, led by Foster + Partners and MANICA, is set to begin in 2028, with the hope AC Milan and rivals/co-inhabitants Internazionale will be installed by 2031. The old stadium will be dismantled, brick by brick, tower by tower -- it will become a place of ghosts and echoes, rather than the vibrant, intoxicating atmosphere created there creates every weekend.

Bruce Springsteen has played there more than five times dating back to 1985 and said to Corriere della Sera in 2019: "Demolishing San Siro? It would be terrible. Every building has a soul, his spiritual life. And as long as they are sure, I like to play in them. The new buildings do not have that soul."

Albertini sees things differently. "I've played in many grounds that have since been rebuilt -- nearly all the pitches I played on have been redone -- but what remains, regardless, is the soul of the stadium," he says. "And the soul of  San Siro will live on in the new stadium."

You could forgive Costacurta for being in the opposite camp from Springsteen. But although he's spent most of his life at San Siro and lives near the ground, sometimes you need to make hard decisions for long-term happiness and security.

"Listen, I thought I had found the love of my life and then I married her and we divorced after one year," Costacurta says. "One month after getting divorced, I met another woman and now it's been 32 years that I live with that woman. So that's a good comparison.

"I am very attached to San Siro, but I believe the club needs something new and modern. You must move the story forward. I've probably been at that stadium over 500 times. I played games for AC Milan, I played friendly games, I played games with the national team. But I understand why the club needs to move forward."