Del Cielo e della Notte - Voices from San Siro | OneFootball

At first, no one mentions it explicitly, but soon it seeps into every conversation. In the city of Fashion Week, Design Week, and Music Week (currently underway, we'll revisit that), we are in full swing for Derby Week.

In a city where English words are often borrowed and used in unusual ways, try asking for a 'location' abroad, and people would be lost; the atmosphere during Derby Week feels completely different.

The night before, you can't fall asleep, that's for sure. The closer the kick-off gets, the more you try to control your nerves until matchday arrives. For many in the city, it's a comically predictable routine: dressed the same, lunch at the same place with the same menu, meeting the same friends at the same time. You watch the minutes tick by, trying to stay calm, knowing that in the end, those ninety minutes have you in a chokehold. They shape your mood for the following week, your conversations over coffee, your texts, and even the way your loved ones care for you after the match. The Derby di Milano carries the weight of an entire season, not on its own, but because it's the only fixture in Italy, maybe even globally, that has decided Scudetti, Champions League finals, Cups, and Super Cups. It's a glimpse into the wider world, just like the city that hosts it.

It's one of the few derbies where fans come together before and after the game, and the stadium's colours, besides the curva sections, form a patchwork. Unheard of anywhere else, made possible in the most European of Italian cities and the most Italian of European cities. And this doesn't ease the rivalry; if anything, it is more intense. The home advantage doesn't make too much of a difference. This derby has seen scores like 5-1, 0-4, 2-4, and 0-6.

Milano has always been forward-thinking, and football is no exception. The most important derby? Easy. The next one. And the next one is on Sunday night.

It's truly high up there, 108.5 metres above the ground, on the roof of the Madonnina. And if it looks like she's swaying these days, that's probably down to Music Week. To discuss the Derby, we dust off a slightly old-school album from the early 200s: Mi Fist by Club Dogo, a milestone of Italian rap and one of the most quintessentially Milanese records ever written. Through its songs, you can hear the snippets of a city evolving at full speed, reshaping its spaces: squares and landmarks filling and emptying, swallowed by social networks where everything is everywhere, and in Milano, that's especially true.

Milano is the only city, alongside Manchester, to have won the Champions League with two different clubs and the only one to have done so almost fifty years apart. It began first in the sixties, 1963 and 1969, when Milan won the European Cup twice.

As for the coach, he was the same one throughout: Nereo Rocco, known as Il Paron, the pioneer of that tough, straightforward Italian style of play, and a master of the witty one-liners. "May the best team win," a reporter once wished him, to which he replied, "Speremo de no," in dialect, meaning "Let's hope not." His worth rival was Helenio Herrera on the touchline, perhaps the first manager to forge a persona that was charismatic, magnetic, and bordering on the prophetic. He had slogans in the dressing room, provocative interviews right in the middle of training sessions, and a hands-on control over everything to do with the team. He also secured two European Cups, as well as suffering the pain of a lost final. And in the art of his witty remarks, he matched Rococo's energy: "Who doesn't give it their all, gives nothing." In Milano, that's the sort of phrase people would get tattooed, a tatuaggetto if you will.

In the 2000s, Ancelotti and Mourinho carried that same legacy, bringing the trophy back to shine above the Naviglio.

Milano, the European city, has never felt quite like this before. The touchlines have always been hot and decisive for coaches, and Sunday night will not be any different. For Allegri, the derby is a story of a good start gone bad: he won the first three matches, but took just one point from the next four. For Chivu, on the other hand, it's something etched clearly into memory. You never forget your first derby, and nobody knows that better than the Inter coach. As he falls asleep on Saturday night, his mind will undoubtedly turn to 23 December 2007.

A few months earlier, Club Dogo had released Vile Denaro, once again perfectly encapsulating the city's energy and perhaps even the two clubs' at a time when they were fighting for supremacy, both on the pitch and in the transfer market.

Inter and Milan came head-to-head just two days before Christmas, and the first thing the Inter players did was give a round of applause. The applause was for their cousins, the recently crowned world champions. The Nerazzurri gave them the pasillo de honor, a tradition borrowed from Spain in which rivals are honoured for achieving major milestones. The Derby di Milano has always been about this: a fight to beat each other. Opponents' trophies feed that rivalry. That Inter and that derby were no different, with the Italian Champions challenging the European and World Champions. The said message: "Well done for now, but we'll show you who's really in charge." But it was Milan who scored with a free-kick masterpiece from Pirlo. After that, Inter picked up the pace as Julio Cruz equalised, a play we'll come back to, and Esteban Cambiasso scored, set up by Dida. And as for Cristian Chivu? He played in midfield. Along with Cambiasso, Zanetti, and Luis Jiimenez, a Chilean attacking midfielder whose career flew under the radar, but who was crucial during that stretch for Inter as they secured another Scudetto. Chivu earned plenty of sevens on the ratings, normally only given out for national team midfield duty.

Let's revisit that equaliser from Cruz. It was more a goal that stemmed from frustration than technique. Julio, who was surrounded by Rossoneri legs, found the opportunity to let off a left-footed rocket, keep the ball low, and fire past Dida. This immediately changed the momentum of the game. In a derby, more than ever, momentum matters: the adrenaline of a goal can change everything. And the forwards know that; they have to claim it boldly. Inter vs. Milan is a match for true strikers. It's even better if, like Cruz, they're from Argentina. And the five goals we're going to revisit are from Argentinians.

Hernán Crespo opened the scoring back in October 2006, in one of the most incredible derbies ever in terms of the names on the scoresheets and the quality of the teams. Stankovic stuck a free-kick into the far post, and Crespo's unstoppable header found the net.

Rodrigo Palacio scored a masterpiece, interestingly also just before Christmas in 2013. His back-heel goal two minutes from full time is still a gem for fans of the beautiful game. Inter and Milan were not at their peaks (they finished fifth and eighth, respectively), but a derby is still a derby.

Mauro Icardi fulfilled two major ambitions with flair: a hat-trick, three goals to put Inter ahead three times, the last one was decisive, and a fourth in stoppage time, connecting with a Vecino cross and assisted by a mistimed rush off his line by Gigio Donarumma. San Siro went absolutely wild.

When it comes to Milan Derby legends, there are two Argentinians who truly stand out. The first is Diego Milito, who scored six times in derbies, four of them in the 2011/12 season. The first leg math, especially, is a prime example of what a derby can become: maybe I won't win, but I won't let you win either. That season, Inter finished 22 points behind Milan, but they won both derbies. In the first leg, Milan dominated and pressed, but Inter came out on top. A pass from Zanetti, a mistake from Abate, and the perfect opportunity for Milito: he pushed up, counted his steps, and fired a tricky diagonal shot that clipped the post and rolled in. The "Prince" then celebrated, drowned in clothing. Whose was it? The answer in the next episode...

The second Argentinian who comes to mind when we think about Derbies is Lautaro Martinez, with nine goals to his name; he is by far the most active goal scorer. The best of the nine goals? Undoubtedly, the one that sent Inter flying to Istanbul. That incredibly strange little dance of the ball between Lukaku and Lautaro, with Gosens hesitating as the unwitting third wheel, was abruptly ended by the Nerazzurri number ten's powerful blast into the near post. The roar that ensued was one of the loudest we've ever heard in our lives.

Don't worry, we haven't forgotten your favourite segment: The Interista You Don't Remember.

Usually, a goal in the derby guarantees immortality in footballing history, but some are forgotten, and after all, years have passed.

His career is still alive; he recently came back from a loan at Dubai City, currently seventeenth in the league. We're far from the Loco Abreu with 25 clubs, but not too far. At 36, Ezequiel Schelotto has scored 25 goals (source Wikipedia), but there's only one he thinks about every day. "I got it tattooed the very next day," he playfully told La Gazzetta dello Sport a few days ago. And rightly so. Because that day, the odds seemed stacked against Inter. A team lacking confidence, struggling for results, hardly improved by the January transfer window. Among the arrivals that month was Ezequiel Schelotto, an Argentine of clear Italian heritage, who hadn't impressed so far. Right from kick-off, Milan dominated and took the lead twenty minutes in with a beautiful goal from El Shaarawy. The match then turned into a private duel between Mario Balotelli, desperate to score the long-awaited goal against his former club, and Samir Handanović, Balotelli's nemesis, who denied him at every turn. Stramaccioni changed formation, removing a midfielder to add a winger: specifically, Cambiasso came off for Schelotto. Some thought it was game over, but it became the decisive move of the match. On his first touch, Schelotto dived into the box with rookie audacity and equalised from a Yuto Nagatomo cross. He almost secured a brace from a Cassano cross in added time. He would have been too powerful thought the football gods. Sometimes, if you can't win, it's enough that your opponents can't either. Those were different times; now the Derby di Milano carries even more weight. Late November, too early for a definitive judgment on the season, but just in time to make a statement, especially to your rivals.