Dennis - the hat trick

Summer 1993. Inter had just ended a superb Serie A campaign as runners-up to Milan. Osvaldo Bagnoli had worked wonders, taking his side into a genuine Scudetto race against a Rossoneri squad blessed with extraordinary depth. The comparison told its own story. Jean-Pierre Papin, winner of the 1991 Ballon d’Or, had joined Milan in the summer of 1992 and found himself competing for a place with van Basten. Inter, meanwhile, could only call on Ruben Sosa, Salvatore Schillaci and Darko Pancev in attack. To close the gap, they needed a major signing – a player with the quality and profile to make a statement. Dennis Bergkamp was the man they chose. The Ajax star arrived in Milano alongside fellow Dutchman Jonk. After the German era of Klinsmann, Brehme and Matthäus between 1989 and 1992, Inter turned to the Netherlands for the next chapter.

Wim Jonk was the metronomic midfielder, but the headline arrival was Dennis Bergkamp. Third in the 1992 Ballon d’Or standings, the Dutchman would go one better a year later, finishing runner-up to Roberto Baggio.

His first Inter goal came against Cremonese, but Europe was where he produced his best football. On 16 September 1993, Inter hosted Rapid Bucharest in the first round of the UEFA Cup and Bergkamp stole the show. He scored all three goals, including a spectacular overhead kick, in a performance that made the San Siro night his own. He did not leave with the match ball – the custom of taking it home after a hat-trick would only become widespread a few years later – but by the end of the season he had something far more valuable to show for it. Inter went on to lift the second UEFA Cup in the club’s history, with Bergkamp finishing as the competition’s top scorer with eight goals. Serie A proved more difficult. He scored eight times there too, but in more than 30 appearances, compared with just 11 in Europe. Osvaldo Bagnoli’s football was direct, pragmatic and very much rooted in the defensive traditions associated with the Italian game at the time. It was a style that brought the best out of Ruben Sosa, whose pace and movement made him devastating on the counter, but it was less suited to Bergkamp, who had come through at an Ajax side built around keeping and controlling the ball.

Bergkamp spent three years in Nerazzurri colours before moving to Arsenal, where he became one of the defining players of the Premier League era. But his Inter spell still produced one of the greatest European campaigns in the club’s history – and that night at San Siro offered a perfect glimpse of his extraordinary quality.