Milan 1-6 Juventus: a result that changed the shape of Italian football

The tectonic plates of Italian football shifted on 6 April 6 1997, when Juventus travelled to San Siro, beat reigning champions Milan 6-1 and stamped their superiority on Serie A. Twenty-five years have passed and Italian football has not seen such a dominant showing since. “It was a fantastic game,” says Christian Vieri, who scored two of Juve’s goals. “We played 90 amazing minutes, scored six goals and our team was fabulous. No one ever beat Milan 6-1 at home.” It remains Milan’s biggest home defeat in Serie A.

It is an overstatement to say this one game altered the course of history, but it’s worth noting that Milan had won four of the previous five Scudetti. Since 1997, they have won only three. Juve, by contrast, have won 13. Milan’s enduring dominance over Serie A never returned and neither did their coach. Marcello Lippi went on to become one of the preeminent coaches of the era, but this precipitated the end of Arrigo Sacchi’s career.

“It was a game where everything went right and everything went wrong for them,” says Vieri. We scored all of our chances and they missed theirs. We were just unstoppable. You get those games where, whatever you do, everything comes off. That’s what happened.”

Milan and Juve had played out a dour goalless draw at the Stadio delle Alpi in November but, by the time they met again in April, Milan were 13 points behind Juve, who were top of the table and on top of the world. In between, Juve had won the Intercontinental Cup in Tokyo, beating River Plate, and demolished Paris Saint-Germain 9-2 on aggregate in the two-legged European Super Cup at the turn of the year.

Milan started the brighter of the two teams at San Siro, with Silvio Berlusconi favourite Dejan Savicevic linking up well