Milan FC

Milan FC

AC Milan

Associazione Calcio Milan is the Italian football club based in Milan. AC Milan play in red and black stripes, giving them the nickname Rossoneri (“red-blacks”). The team is known colloquially as Milan, while its city rivals are known in English, simply as Inter. One of the most successful clubs in the world, A.C. Milan has won the prestigious UEFA Champions League (or equivalent) six times, the World Club crown (Intercontinental Cup) 3 times, the Serie A title 17 times (only rivals Juventus F.C. have more Scudetti) and the Coppa Italia (Italian Cup) five times. In total they have won 12 European trophies, sharing the record with Real Madrid. It is also one of the most supported football clubs in the world, and along with Juventus and Inter are one of the most popular teams in Italy.

Colours and Badge

AC Milan’s official colours have been red and black since its foundation. These colours were chosen to represent the fiery ardour that is part of the team members and the opponents’ fear to challenge the team. The badge represents the club colours and the flag of the Comune di Milano (Municipality of Milan), with the acronym ACM at the top and the foundation year (1899) at the bottom.
The home jersey is red and black vertical striped, with white shorts and black socks. The away strip has always been completely white. The latter is considered by both the fans and the club as their “lucky” strip in Champions League finals, due to the fact that Milan won six finals out of eight in an all white strip (losing only to Ajax in 1995 and Liverpool in 2005), while lost both the finals played in their home strip. The third kit changes yearly and is black with red trim for the current season, but it is rarely used. The Goalkeeper kit is either green or yellow shirt, black shorts and black socks.
The Austrian on-line betting company bwin are currently Milan’s main jersey sponsors after signing a 4 year deal at the start of the 2006/2007 season. Previous to this deal, the German car manufacturer, Opel had sponsored Milan for 12 seasons. For most of them, Opel was displayed on the front of the jersey, but in the 2003-04 and the 2005-06 seasons respectively, Meriva and Zafira (two cars from their range) were displayed.

The current jerseys are supplied by German sportswear manufacturer Adidas, whose deal runs to the end of the 2007/2008 season. The deal makes Adidas the official manufacturer of all kits, training equipment and replica outfits. Prior to Adidas, the Italian sports company, Lotto produced Milan’s sportswear.

AC Milan Stadium
The team’s current stadium is the 82,955 seater San Siro, officially known as Stadio Giuseppe Meazza after the former player who represented both Milan and Internazionale. The name San Siro comes from the district where it’s located. The stadium is shared with Inter, the other major football club in Milan. The stadium is well known for its fantastic atmosphere due to the closeness of the stands to the pitch. Another feature of the stadium is the use of flares by the fans which can sometimes cause trouble.

On 19 December 2005, AC Milan vice-president and executive director Adriano Galliani announced that the team is seriously working to move out from San Siro. He said that Milan’s new stadium will be largely based on the Veltins-Arena and following the standards of football stadia in the United States, Germany and Spain. It will likely be a stadium for football purposes only (with no athletics track). The new stadium is supposed to be named after a sponsor. It remains to see if this plan will proceed or if this is just a ploy to force the owners (Comune di Milano) to sell the stadium to Milan for a nominal fee so as to proceed with extensive renovations. Rumours have also surfaced of Inter’s intention to also build a new stadium which may also affect this decision.

Milanello
Milan’s training ground, Milanello, is located just outside the city of Milan, in the village of Varese (approx. 50 kilometres). It was built over two years from 1961 to 1963, and has been serving as a top-modern training lab ever since.

Silvio Berlusconi took over AC Milan in 1986, and that saw him reorganise and renew Milanello to meet the standards of professionel football in the 80′s. Milanello, however, never stopped evolving, and to this day it is considered amongst the most hi-tech and efficient training grounds throughout the soccer world. Speculations are, that the wonders of the Milan Lab, make it possible for Milan’s players to go on and on for ages, with the likes of ageing players like Maldini, Costacurta and Cafu still going strong within the squad.

The facility holds 46 rooms with space for 56 beds; President Silvio Berlusconi even has his own quarters. 14 permanent staff members are employed.

Number	Position	Player
1	GK	Dida
3	DF	Paolo Maldini (captain)
4	DF	Kakhaber Kaladze
5	MF	Emerson
7	FW	Alexandre Pato
8	MF	Gennaro Gattuso
9	FW	Filippo Inzaghi
10	MF	Clarence Seedorf
11	FW	Marco Borriello
12	GK	Christian Abbiati
13	DF	Alessandro Nesta
14	MF	Mathías Cardacio
15	DF	Gianluca Zambrotta
16	GK	Zeljko Kalac
18	DF	Marek Jankulovski
19	DF	Giuseppe Favalli
20	MF	Tabaré Viudez
21	MF	Andrea Pirlo
22	MF	Kaká
23	MF	Massimo Ambrosini (vice-captain)
24	DF	Philippe Senderos (on loan from Arsenal)
25	DF	Daniele Bonera
32	MF	David Beckham (on loan from Los Angeles Galaxy)
36	DF	Matteo Darmian
51	MF	Rodney Strasser
76	FW	Andriy Shevchenko
77	DF	Luca Antonini
80	MF	Ronaldinho
84	MF	Mathieu Flamini