Timeline

Milan around 1900 was a fast-growing city, with factories, trade and many foreigners. Among them was a group of Englishmen who had brought football with them from home. In December 1899 they joined Italian friends and founded Milan Foot-Ball and Cricket Club, with Alfred Edwards as president and Herbert Kilpin leading the team on the pitch. The name was written in English, «Milan», and so it remains.

Herbert Kilpin was the heart of the early club. He was captain, coach and driving force, and he is credited with choosing the colours. According to the story, he said the team would be a team of devils, red as fire and black as the fear they would strike into their opponents. That is why fans still call Milan «il Diavolo», the devil.

Success came quickly. In 1901 Milan broke Genoa's grip on the Italian championship, and in 1906 and 1907 two more titles followed. Football was then a sport for the few, with small stands and matches on basic pitches, but Milan soon became a name across the country.

Then came the split. In 1908 there was a dispute within the club over how many foreign players the team should be allowed to use, and a group of members left Milan and founded Internazionale. It was the start of the Derby della Madonnina, one of the world's most famous city derbies. After the first three titles came a long barren spell, and the First World War put football on hold for several years.

The interwar years were lean for Milan on the pitch. The club was a fixture in the top division, but had to watch Inter, Juventus, Bologna and others collect the titles. For supporters these were years of hope that was rarely fulfilled.

The biggest event happened off the pitch. President Piero Pirelli had a stadium of the club's own built in the San Siro district, and in September 1926 it was opened with a derby against Inter. Milan lost 6–3, but gained a home that would become one of the most famous football stadiums in the world. In 1935 the city council took over ownership and expanded the stands.

From 1929 Serie A was played as a single national league, as we know it today. At the same time the Fascist regime interfered more and more in sport. English names were unpopular with those in power, and in 1939 the club had to take the Italian name Associazione Calcio Milano.

Towards the end of the 1930s the fans still had something to cheer about. Striker Aldo Boffi joined the club in 1936 and became Serie A top scorer. Milan reached the Coppa Italia semi-finals four years in a row and got a taste of the Mitropa Cup, the great competition of the era for clubs from Central Europe.

The war years were hard for Milan and for football. The city was bombed, the league was interrupted, and the club had to use an imposed Italian name. One bright spot was that Inter legend Giuseppe Meazza played for Milan for two seasons around 1940. After the liberation in 1945 the club got the name Milan back.

The turning point came in 1949. Sweden had won the Olympics in London the year before, and Milan first signed striker Gunnar Nordahl and then Gunnar Gren and Nils Liedholm. The trio were nicknamed Gre-No-Li. Nordahl was a powerful goal machine, Gren a clever playmaker and Liedholm an elegant midfielder who almost never misplaced a pass. In their very first season the team scored over a hundred league goals and won 7–1 away to Juventus.

In 1951 the Scudetto finally returned after 44 years, and that same summer Milan won the Latin Cup, a tournament for the champions of Italy, Spain, Portugal and France. Nordahl was Serie A top scorer five times and is still the club's all-time leading scorer. Later came the Uruguayan Juan Alberto Schiaffino, a world champion from 1950, and the Brazilian José Altafini.

Milan also won the league in 1955, 1957 and 1959 and were now one of the best teams in Europe. In 1958 the club reached its first European Cup final, but lost 3–2 after extra time to Real Madrid. For supporters this decade was a rebirth. Milan were no longer the team watching others win, but the team everyone wanted to beat.

In 1960 a teenager from Alessandria arrived at Milan. Gianni Rivera was slight and elegant, but had an eye for a pass that few others possessed. He became the club's great star for almost 20 years and earned the nickname «il Golden Boy». In 1969 he became the first Italian-born player to win the Ballon d'Or.

The coach who gave Rivera his framework was Nereo Rocco from Trieste. Rocco was known for a cautious, well-organised defensive game, in which the team's first priority was to avoid conceding and then strike on the counter. It was effective. Milan won the league in 1962, and the following year the team beat Benfica at Wembley and became the first Italian winners of the European Cup. Brazilian José Altafini scored both goals in the final from Rivera's passes.

Rocco left for a spell, but returned in 1967 and gave the club a new golden era. Milan won the league and the Cup Winners' Cup in 1968, and in 1969 Ajax, with a young Johan Cruyff, were crushed 4–1 in the European Cup final in Madrid. That autumn Milan beat Argentina's Estudiantes in the Intercontinental Cup, in a second leg known as one of the most brutal in history.

The 1970s were more uneven. Milan won the Coppa Italia several times and the Cup Winners' Cup again in 1973, but that same year lost the title on the final matchday with a 5–3 defeat away to Verona. Fans still call that defeat «fatal Verona». Meanwhile, Inter and Juventus were often stronger in the league.

The period still had a fine ending. With Nils Liedholm as coach, Milan won their tenth title in 1979 and earned the right to wear a star above the club crest. Rivera retired after the season. An era was over, and nobody suspected how dark the next few years would be.

Just one year after the star, Milan fell all the way. In March 1980 several players and president Felice Colombo were arrested in the Totonero scandal over illegal betting and match-fixing. Milan were forcibly relegated to Serie B, and the president was banned from football. The team quickly came back, but went down again on sporting merit in 1982, the same summer Italy became world champions.

By the mid-1980s the club was almost broke. Bright spots were few, but important. Young Franco Baresi had become captain, and in January 1985 a 16-year-old left-back named Paolo Maldini made his debut. In February 1986 media magnate Silvio Berlusconi bought the club and saved it from bankruptcy. He presented the team by landing in a helicopter at the Arena Civica while Wagner's «Ride of the Valkyries» boomed around the stadium.

Berlusconi took a chance on an almost unknown coach from Parma, Arrigo Sacchi, and signed the Dutchmen Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and later Frank Rijkaard. Sacchi wanted the whole team to attack and defend together, with a high defensive line, a compact shape and constant pressure on the ball carrier. The defence of Baresi, Maldini, Tassotti and Costacurta became legendary. Milan won the league in 1988 and the European Cup in 1989 and 1990, and many consider this one of the greatest club sides of all time.

When Sacchi became national team manager in 1991, Fabio Capello took over. He was more pragmatic, but the results were even more impressive. Milan went through an entire league season unbeaten, set a record of 58 league matches in a row without defeat and won three straight titles. The high point came in Athens in 1994, when Barcelona were beaten 4–0 in the Champions League final.

Towards the end of the decade, the cracks began to show. Van Basten had to retire because of an ankle injury, Baresi stepped down in 1997, and two seasons ended far down the table. But in 1999, exactly one hundred years after the club was founded, Alberto Zaccheroni's Milan won the title after a strong finish to the season. For the fans it was the perfect centenary gift.

The new millennium began with Andriy Shevchenko leading the line. The Ukrainian arrived from Dynamo Kyiv in 1999 and quickly became one of Europe's best strikers. After a couple of turbulent seasons, Berlusconi and director Adriano Galliani brought in former Milan player Carlo Ancelotti as head coach in November 2001.

Ancelotti built a team around technically gifted midfielders. Andrea Pirlo was moved back in front of the defence and dictated play from there, with Gennaro Gattuso as his tireless partner and Clarence Seedorf and later Kaká ahead of them. Behind them stood Maldini, Alessandro Nesta and Cafu, and up front Shevchenko and Filippo Inzaghi scored the goals. Milan won the Champions League in 2003 and the league in 2004.

No Milan fan will ever forget that night in Istanbul in 2005. The team led 3–0 at half-time in the final against Liverpool, but conceded three goals in six minutes and lost on penalties. The following year the club was dragged into the Calciopoli refereeing scandal and docked points. Even so, the team got its revenge in Athens in 2007, when Liverpool were beaten 2–1. Kaká won the Ballon d'Or, and Milan became club world champions.

After 2009 the big names disappeared one by one. Ancelotti left, Maldini retired and Kaká was sold. Under Massimiliano Allegri and with Zlatan Ibrahimović up front, Milan still won the league in 2011, but in the summer of 2012 both Ibrahimović and Thiago Silva were sold, and many veterans left at the same time. The club struggled financially and changed coaches often.

Berlusconi sold the club in 2017 after more than 30 years. The new Chinese owners spent heavily, but the purchase was financed with loans, and the following year the investment fund Elliott took over. For supporters this was a decade of frustration, with Milan often absent from the Champions League and forced to watch Juventus win title after title.

When Zlatan Ibrahimović returned in January 2020, Milan were a team without confidence. Shortly afterwards the pandemic halted football, and matches were played in empty stadiums. But Stefano Pioli's young side found their form after the break, and in 2021 Milan were back in the Champions League for the first time in seven years.

The 2021–22 season was a fairytale. With goalkeeper Mike Maignan, centre-back Fikayo Tomori, full-back Theo Hernández, Sandro Tonali in midfield and Rafael Leão as the big weapon up front, Milan caught Inter at the end and won their 19th title. The team was young, fast and hungry, and for many younger supporters it was the first time they had seen the club win the league.

That same summer the American investment firm RedBird bought the club from Elliott. The following year Milan reached the Champions League semi-finals, but lost to Inter. Shortly afterwards Paolo Maldini was removed from the management, which provoked strong reactions among the fans. In June 2023 Silvio Berlusconi, the man behind the club's greatest era, also died.

After Pioli left in 2024, a turbulent period followed. Paulo Fonseca was sacked after half a season, and Sérgio Conceição won the Supercoppa against Inter with a dramatic comeback, but the team finished 8th and missed out on Europe. Massimiliano Allegri returned in 2025, but fifth place in 2026 was not enough, and he was sacked the day after the final matchday.

The summer and autumn of 2026 have been marked by both a fresh start and grief. Portugal's Rúben Amorim became the new head coach, and the club, together with Inter, has bought San Siro with plans for a new stadium. In July club legend Franco Baresi died, and in September San Siro turned 100. For supporters this is a time to remember the history and hope that the next great era is near.