For Sandro Mazzola, Inter’s second star joined two nights nearly 58 years apart: one under the San Siro sun against Lazio, the other beneath the floodlights of a derby against Milan. The first made Inter the first club in the city to reach ten league titles. The second confirmed them as the first Milan side to reach 20.
The coach and the club
On 15 May 1966, Inter went into the penultimate round of Serie A with Lazio arriving at San Siro. The club were already European champions and world champions, having retained the Intercontinental Cup earlier that season. Mazzola, then 24, scored Inter’s second goal in a 4-1 victory and celebrated with raised arms in an image that became part of the club’s history.
That afternoon secured Inter’s tenth Italian championship and their first star. Yet Mazzola remembered that even a side accustomed to trophies felt the weight of the occasion. More than 70,000 supporters filled the stadium, while the players sat quietly in the dressing room before kick-off, each focused on the task ahead.
Angelo Moratti entered and asked them why they were still there rather than preparing to play. Mazzola said the squad had already begun the match in their minds.
“The noise from the crowd and the whole setting were extraordinary,” he recalled. “We had won so much, but that did not make the moment any less intense.”
Inter’s standards were not left solely to Helenio Herrera. Mazzola described a dressing room in which players held one another accountable from the training ground onwards. If somebody lacked focus or commitment, teammates acted immediately rather than waiting for the coach to intervene.
That same season, Inter had again won the Intercontinental Cup. Mazzola scored twice against Independiente in the first leg of the final, another sign of the level at which the Grande Inter had come to operate.
From the first star to the second
On 22 April 2024, Mazzola watched the decisive Milan derby from home at the age of 82. On the table were a bottle of Coca-Cola and a copy of his recently published autobiography, Cuore nerazzurro. Una bandiera è per sempre, whose cover carries a prominent star.
His pre-match routine had remained demanding. He invited only his children, asked everyone to dress in a particular way, and spent a long build-up trying not to dwell on the match that could bring Inter their twentieth Scudetto.
“I could take my mind off it for a couple of hours, but it always came back to the game and to the twentieth title,” he said.
The achievement carried a particular historical meaning for him. Inter had put the first star over Milan in 1966; now they had reached the second before anyone else in the city.
“It is a wonderful achievement and a historic occasion for the club,” Mazzola said. “We were first to wear one star in Milan, and now we are first to win two.”
A familiar hunger in the new Inter
Mazzola sees a connection between Herrera’s celebrated Inter and Simone Inzaghi’s champions. It is not merely the number of trophies, but the instinct to seize control and the refusal to settle after success.
“There is the desire to win and to take charge of the match straight away,” he said. “At times it may look as though Inter are not attacking, then suddenly they are there and the opposition have no answer.”
Having recently visited the squad at Appiano Gentile, Mazzola praised Inzaghi both as a man and as a coach. He had known and appreciated him before the title was settled, he said, and could now congratulate him on a campaign that ended as Inter had hoped.
Asked whether the second star began on the night in Istanbul, Mazzola instead pointed to the side’s wider development. This Inter, he said, have grown into a team able to recognise when a match must be decided.
Every player runs and supports the others, in his view, giving the side its collective strength. The football has been enjoyable as well as effective, and Mazzola noted that Inter had shown that quality on the international stage too. For a club whose colours have defined his life, the second star was not simply a number: it was the latest proof that a championship identity had endured across generations.
