I don’t like derbies, Milan is young, Inter is stronger but I trust in madness»- Corriere.it

In some archives there is a photo dated May 6, 1979, which portrays a child with an ecstatic expression under a huge star raised by a group of fans on the San Siro lawn after winning the tenth Scudetto. That child is me.

The first joy that Milan gave me was put in grave danger by Inter. Everyone remembers the breakneck ride by the lawyer Walter De Vecchi, author of the improbable double that made us reassemble a now lost derby. Instead, I still think of the anguish of the previous eighty minutes, of that feeling of agony that gripped my stomach many years later after Oba Martins’ equalizer in the 2003 Champions League semifinal.

I’ve never liked derbies. Not even those played during our golden age, thank you forever Silvio, when the city challenge became almost a detail, so clear was the difference between those who were making football history and those who instead were pleased with their own football backwardness. Berlusconi’s twenty years have also dug an ideological furrow. Milan is in the family album that descends from Cruyff’s Holland, and via Liedholm-Arrigo it reaches Guardiola-Klopp, uniting those who seek victory through beauty and play. Inter is instead proud of its Sparagnina and Italianist vocation, going so far as to use it as a unit of measurement of its world. Not all flavors are mint, they say in our area. However, some consequences ensue, in terms of trophies and reputation. Just off the ring road, Inter have the same European coat of arms as Porto, just to be generous.

This double inferiority has always driven them crazy. In recent times, they have had to invent an alternative identity to delude themselves of bridging the distance that separates them from us. They exhibit an animosity towards us worthy of a good cause. Forget the «never been to B» which in a globalized world is only funny. «Eh but Berlusconi…», they say claiming their left-wing artists and intellectuals. Politics takes away, politics gives. We had Silvio, you have Ignazio La Russa.

But that’s why I don’t like derbies. Because I see Inter friends who turn into tavern bullies on the eve. They glare at you, mimicking the Clint Eastwood-esque tough guy stare. And instead they end up looking like Enrico Bertolino. An effort worthy of a treatise on psychiatry, but useless. Because we just can’t get enough of them. Unlike them, we know who we are, through thick and thin. We don’t contest the team, we don’t exalt each other every other day. We are always with our boys, e this group already has the enormous merit of having rekindled a passion that seemed dormant after almost a decade with the lights out. We’ll be with them the next day too, whatever happens.

Don’t worry, you are the strongest and you are proving it. You are an old team and in the last lap, the oldest of the last eight of the Champions League. We are a gang of kids, on average 24 years old and with a lot of future ahead. Once again, it’s a matter of choices, of vision. But the present is yours, you have to acknowledge it. Only you can come to our rescue. Inter’s recent identity is based on a smug praise of its folly, summed up by a slogan, «Pazza Inter, amala», which above all serves as a justification for your frequent sporting disasters. It is a pleasure to recall here the harakiri of Bologna with which you gave us the last Scudetto. In theory, there is no match. But we count on your most intimate essence, the one that makes you so proud. Come on crazy Inter, let us dream.