Massimo - The Fascination

Some matches stay with you for a lifetime. Matches where you remember every detail, and whose magic you can still appreciate and treasure years later.

And then there are matches you remember even when you were too young to understand exactly what was happening.

A four-year-old boy is sitting in the stands at San Siro with his family. In front of him, people are jumping to their feet. His father is applauding, his older brother is embracing him. He does not quite know why. Or perhaps he does.

That little boy is Massimo Moratti. The match is Inter vs. AC Milan on 6 November 1949.

Eleven goals. An impossible comeback. And the first derby in a lifetime as an Inter supporter.

‘A Novel-Like Reality at San Siro’ was the headline in La Gazzetta dello Sport.

The story could have been written by Raymond Chandler, the father of crime fiction, whose works were hugely popular at the time. And the match itself certainly had all the ingredients of a hard-boiled screenplay.

Inter and AC Milan met on matchday 10 of the league season. Giulio Cappelli's Nerazzurri lined up with a formidable attack featuring Nyers, Wilkes, Lorenzi and Amadei, while the Rossoneri countered with their famous Swedish trio, Gre-No-Li (Gren, Nordahl and Liedholm).

The match got under way and AC Milan took the lead after just 60 seconds through Candiani.

Six minutes later, Candiani struck again. Nyers pulled one back, but Nordahl and Liedholm put the Rossoneri 4-1 ahead.

Just 19 minutes had been played. Four-one. San Siro could hardly believe what it was seeing. In boxing, they would have called it a no contest: there was no point in carrying on.

But Inter had no intention of giving up. In the 39th minute, Amadei made it 2-4. A minute later, Nyers converted a penalty. Three-four. At last, the teams headed for the dressing rooms.

The second half brought something even more extraordinary. Amadei equalised in the 50th minute, before Lorenzi completed the comeback eight minutes later. Five-four. AC Milan, however, hit back immediately through Annovazzi.

Five-five. Ten goals, with half an hour still to play. Perhaps that would have been enough. Amedeo Amadei had other ideas. The striker had arrived at Inter after spending years at Roma, the club that had captured his heart, but he was making a remarkable impression in Nerazzurri colours with his goalscoring exploits. He scored more than 20 goals in each of his two seasons at the club. Perhaps he thought that 5-5 was already a fine result, and that a team who had been 4-1 down after 20 minutes might be happy to settle for a draw. But Amadei was not one to settle.

In the 64th minute, he struck again. His hat-trick was complete, and Inter were 6-5 ahead. This time, AC Milan had no answer. Nothing more happened in the final half-hour, apart from one last piece of magic. Shortly before the final whistle, ‘Veleno’ Lorenzi, inside the penalty area, embarked on a series of feints to mock his marker. Exhausted, the defender did not even attempt to challenge him. The referee blew for full time, and Lorenzi flicked the ball up before volleying it towards the stands.

Eleven goals, six different scorers and a derby turned around after trailing by three. To this day, it remains the highest-scoring Milano derby in history.

Among those watching was a young Massimo Moratti, just over four years old, sitting beside his father Angelo. Years later, he would recall the crowd rising to its feet, his father's applause and his brother Gian Marco jumping on him in celebration after that decisive sixth goal.

The following day, newspapers reported on the celebrations among Inter supporters, who marked the victory with a banquet at a restaurant in the city centre.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Milano, people were trying to work out how a team could possibly lose after leading 4-1.

At the end of the season, Juventus would lift the Scudetto, with Inter finishing third. But over the years, that 6-5 victory would become etched in the collective memory.

For Massimo Moratti, it was the beginning of an extraordinary love affair, one that would eventually lead him to become the club's president many years later.

But his first Nerazzurri memory would always be that of a little boy in the stands, surrounded by people celebrating an unforgettable victory.