Super Cup clash between Milan giants brings Italian football renaissance to Riyadh

People in the Middle East who are long-time followers of European football look back on the late 1980s and early 1990s as a golden era for Italian football.

Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan and Giovanni Trapattoni’s Inter, both of whom featured a mixture of some of the best exports from across the continent and Italy’s finest home-grown talent, captured the imagination in the same ways that Real Madrid and Barcelona later would in the heydays of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

In the red and black corner we had the Dutch trio of Ruud Gullit, Marco Van Basten and Frank Rijkaard, mixing it with Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini and Carlo Ancelotti. And in the blue and black corner, the German triumvirate of Jurgen Klinsmann, Lothar Matthaus and Andreas Brehme, supported by Walter Zenga, Giuseppe Bergomi and Aldo Serena.

Between them, AC and Inter cleaned up, at home and on the continent.

On Wednesday night, the latest incarnations of the Milanese giants will meet in the Supercoppa Italiana, the Italian Super Cup, at King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh.

Lorenzo Casini, who was appointed president of Serie A in 2022, is very aware of the comparisons between the current AC and Inter teams — led by Stefano Pioli and Simone Inzaghi, respectively — and their previous, legendary sides.

“It’s interesting because the history of soccer now should be looked at in centuries,” he told Arab News.

“Of course, we have cycles. Milan and Inter are like Real Madrid or Manchester United; some win more, some win less. But we are sure that together with other Italian teams, we are going back to the fabulous ’90s.”

Wednesday’s game will be the third time the showpiece match between the winner of the Italian league and cup competitions has