I. The Swedish Era of the Three Musketeers
Since 1908, when some AC Milan players announced their departure from the team to form Inter Milan because they were dissatisfied with the team's excessive Angliaization, milan club entered a forty-year-long winter, and the snow of this winter did not begin to melt slowly until the end of the Second World War, and Milan also lived up to expectations to open a beautiful spring.
After World War II, the Serie A resumed, and in order to improve the quality of the league, the Italian Football Association reopened its foreign aid policy in 1947. Milan was like a spring breeze, the club president at the time, Umberto Trabattoni, made a risky but later proved to be a wise and great decision, signing three Swedes who were in the prime of their careers: Gunna Nordal, Gunnar Glenn and Nils Lidholm, who later became known as the "Gnoli Combination", also known as the "Swedish Three Musketeers", and hired the famous Hungarian coach Lajos Segil at the time. Milan, which had been sleeping for nearly half a century, completely woke up, and the Swedish Three Musketeers shook the football world.
The Swedish Three Musketeers
In the 1950s, Milan conquered four Serie A titles (1950–1951, 1954–1955, 1956–1957, 1958–1959) and showed absolute competitiveness in Europe, winning the UEFA Latin Cup twice, but unfortunately both lost to Real Madrid in the semi-finals of the inaugural European Cup of Champions League in 1955–1956 and the Champions League final in 1957–1958.
AC Milan in the era of the Three Musketeers of Sweden
Gunnar Nordar, the most popular of the Swedish Three Musketeers, the third of the three Nordal brothers, has a strong physique, and the Three Brothers Nodar helped Sweden sweep the championship at the 1948 London Olympic Games. Since then, Juventus and Milan have both set their sights on Nodal, and due to the abandonment of Juventus president Gianni Agnelli, Nodal, who had already planned to go to Turin, came to Milan, thus changing the history of the Italian league. During his 8 years with Milan, Nordal won the league's top scorer five times, and the record of 35 goals in a single season set in the 1949-1950 season was not broken until the 2015-2016 season by Argentine striker Higuain for Napoli (36 goals), and Nodal scored 221 goals for Milan (210 goals in Serie A), which remains milan's all-time top scorer. At the end of the 1955-1956 season, Nordal moved to Rome, and counting the 15 Serie A goals for Roma, Nordal ranked third in the all-time top scorer in Serie A history with 225 serie A goals. On September 16, 1995, Nodal died of a heart attack, and the famous journalist Botlotti of the Milan Sports Newspaper wrote the following eulogy: "Football is in tears, I think there will never be another scorer like Nodal who brings terror and respect to the opponent, and no one can surpass the wonderful and glorious image he brought to Italian football and the glorious image of a great goalscorer, and his right-footed shot in the running will always live in the hearts of the fans!" ”
Gunnar Nordal
In July 1953, Glenn moved to Fiorentina, where Milan brought in uruguayan striker Juan Alberto Skiafino for a world record of £72,000 at the time.
Juan Alberto Schiafino
In 1954, Milan welcomed two important figures in the club's history, Cesar Maldini moved to Milan and publishing magnate Andrea Rizzoli took over as president.
César Maldini
Rizzoli, who inherited Milan's tradition of acquiring foreign aid, repeatedly created a huge influence by buying foreign aid, and after the 1958 World Cup, Rizzoli poached josé Altafini, the world champion main center known as the "art tank" from The Palmeiras team in Brazil; in 1960, the wealthy Rizzoli recruited 16-year-old Italian right winger Gijani Rivera for 65,000 pounds. In 1961, Nils Lidholm, who had been playing with Milan for 12 years, announced his retirement, hung up his boots and became a coach, then coached for three years in Milan, then in Rome for three years, and then also coached Verona and Fiorentina, eventually setting a staggering record of 646 games in Serie A. Nils Lidholm's retirement marked the end of the era of the "Swedish Three Musketeers".
Nils Lidholm
"Golden Boy" Rivera
Second, the Rivera era
The end of a glorious era is often followed by dark troughs and abysses, but Rizzoli's management not only allowed the club to successfully survive the change of times, but also pushed Milan to a more brilliant peak. In the 1961-1962 season, Juventus won the eighth Serie A trophy, and the 1962-1963 season was an important season in the history of Milan, the team fully devoted its energy to the European arena, the league eventually ranked third, but the effort paid off, Milan once again reached the final of the European Champions League. On 22 May 1963, at The Wembley Stadium in London, Rivera helped Artafini score twice with two clever passes in the 58th and 66th minutes, and Milan reversed the Portuguese Benfica team led by "Black Panther" Eusebio, reaching the top of Europe for the first time (the Italians' crazy pursuit of the European Champions League finally paid off, Milan became the first Italian club to win the Champions League, and captain César Maldini held aloft the championship trophy to become the first Italian to lift the European Champions Cup). Rivera, who was not yet 20 years old at the time, ranked second in the best european player of the year with his outstanding performance, and the first place was the famous former Soviet goalkeeper Yasin.
César Maldini held aloft the Champions Cup
The famous Milanello sports center was founded in 1963 under the auspices of President Andrei Rizzoli. Rizzoli's pursuit of excellence and vision has made an outstanding contribution to both Milan and Italian football.
Andri Rizzoli retired, Felice Riva took over the presidency, after the 1966 World Cup Maldini returned from the first division, Rivera's mediocre performance was controversial, at this critical moment, in 1967, Milan's new boss Luigi Carraro recalled the coach Nereo Rocco who led Milan to win the first European Championship, under the guidance of Rocco, In the 1967–1968 season, Milan regained its heroism and regained its title in Serie A; it also played triumphant songs in Europe, and won the European Cup Winners' Cup for the first time in 1968 with a 2–0 victory over Hamburg, Germany, rotterdam, the Netherlands. On June 26, 1968, the Prince of Milan, Paul Maldini, was born.
Jimmy Grifs and Rocco (right)
In the following season, Milan finished runners-up in the league, and the Champions League was once again in the final, and on 28 May 1969, at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, Prati scored a hat-trick, and Milan defeated Cruyff's upstart Ajax to win the European Champions Cup with a clean score of 4-1. At the end of the same year, Milan defeated the University de La Plata team in Argentina led by 4-2 overall scores of 4-2, leading the Argentine University de La Plata team, to win the Intercontinental Cup for the first time. With his outstanding performances, In 1969 Rivera was named European Footballer of the Year, becoming the first Italian player to win the Ballon d'Or.
1969 Champions Cup
Prati, who scored a hat-trick in the Champions League final
Rivera won the Ballon d'Or
No one can always be invincible in the long river of history, no one can be prepared for everything, Milan is no exception, at the time of Milan's siege, the Italian Football Association once again imposed restrictions on foreign players, the Rossoneri, which has always had the tradition of acquiring foreign aid, has suffered great losses, and gradually drifted away from the Serie A and Champions League champions, only to win the Italian Cup in 1971 and 1973 and the European Cup Winners' Cup again in 1973. In the 1973–74 season, Milan defended the European Cup Winners' Cup and slipped to seventh, and the famous manager Nellio Rocco resigned as a veteran. Despite Rocco's departure, he brought endless glory to Milan and left a large number of excellent coaches to the world football world, including the great gold coach Trapattoni.
Trapptoni player era
After Rocco left, the Rossoneri was left with only Rivera alone to hold the banner, the 1976-1977 season of the former hero Nils Lidholm stepped forward, returned to Milan as a coach, after three seasons of unremitting efforts, finally in the 1978-1979 season to help Milan regain the 11-year-old league title, this is a historic moment, this is Milan's tenth time to win the Champions League, since then Milan has had a star on the jersey! What matters is that there is Milan's future magical coach Capello in this championship team, and the discerning Lidholm has pushed Franco Baresi, who is less than 18 years old, to the first division, thus brewing another legend.
Coach era Nils Lidholm
1978–79 10th league title
At the same time, the worst president in Milan's history also appeared, Felice Coropo, who wanted to sell The Rivera, 36, because he was too old to sell it, a move that was strongly attacked by fans. Maybe it's the freedom of the dark, maybe it's the hero of current affairs, 20 years ago Rivera took over the rossonered flag from Ledholm, and 20 years later it was he who handed it over to Baresi.
Baresi when he was young
In 1980, Milan experienced the darkest moment in history, the scandal of club owner Coroppo suspected of involvement in football lottery fraud, players suspected of gambling and Lazio playing match-fixing exposed, on March 23, 1980, 13 Milan players who played match-fixing were arrested by the police, including club president Cropo, followed by the Italian Football Association decision to punish: president Felice Coroppo and players Henrique Albertosi and Giorgio Morini were banned for life. AC Milan and Lazio were forcibly relegated to the second division. As the defending champion of the first division, he was relegated and took a "gold star" to play in the second division, which is unprecedented in the history of Serie A, which is extremely embarrassing. After relegation, most of the players on the team climbed the other side and flew away, but Baresi stayed. In the 1980-1981 season, Milan won the second division and returned to the first division, but due to the club's debt and lack of attraction to good players, the 1981-1982 season fell into the second division again, and the boss who led Milan back to the first division, Gaetano Morazzoni, announced that he would give up Milan, but this time Baresi chose loyalty again, saying a very simple and very touching sentence: "I am an AC Milan player, I am determined to stay!" After a season of hard work, Milan are once again returning to the first division as champions in the second division.
In May 1980, the Italian Football Association once again opened up the foreign aid policy, each team limited to two foreign aid, although the return to the first division of Milan has been buying foreign aid for many years, even in 1984 "Milan Prince" Maldini and 1985 "Golden Boy" Rossi joined, but the team's results are still no improvement. Because the Milan club has been terminally ill, there is no worst, only worse, the club operation is seriously deteriorating, the debt is heavy, the Italian Football Association found many irregularities in Milan's finances, the club's debt has tripled in 3 years, there are a lot of unpaid taxes and arrears of employee wages, the boss Giuseppe Farina has already quietly escaped from the Apennines, Milan is in a state of chaos, almost unsustainable! Interim chairman Rosario LO Verde tried to rely on bank loans to keep the club running.
At this time, AC Milan is about to usher in the most important moment in the club's history, the real owner, the real glory.........
"Golden Boy" Paul Rossi
On 21 January 1985, Maldini made his Serie A debut