Internazionale was founded on 9 March 1908, following a split with Milan, and won its first league championship in the 1909–10 season. In addition, the team is the only team that has competed in Serie A uninterruptedly since its establishment and has not been relegated to a lower league. Since its establishment, Inter has won a total of 39 local cups, including 21 league championships, 10 Italian Cups and 8 Italian Super Cups, and has also won the UEFA Cup and UEFA Champions League 3 times, the Intercontinental Cup 2 times and the FIFA Club World Cup once.
Inter has the highest home match attendance in Italy and the fourth highest in Europe. The team has been owned by Oaktree Capital Management, an American asset management company, since May 2024.
History
Foundation and early years (1908–1929)
Football Club Internazionale Milano was founded on March 9, 1908, with 44 members expelled from the Milan team, which was founded in 1899. The team's colors are gold, blue and black, which are still the club's current colors today. Since the team consisted entirely of Swiss and Italian football players, it was a team open to foreign players.
Inter won the league championship for the first time in the 1909-10 season with their coach Virgilio Fossati, who died during World War I, and for the second time in 1919-20 despite being without Fossati.
In the 1921-22 season, it ranked last in Serie A Group B by collecting 11 points, but despite this, it won the play-off match to avoid relegation to Serie B and remained in the league. With the fascism period that started in 1928, the name of the team first became "Milanese Unione Sportiva" and later "Ambrosiana SS Milano".
1929–1990
Internazionale became the first champion of Serie A, which started to be organized professionally and left the regional tournament format with the league championship it won for the 3rd time in the 1929-30 season, and also won the league for the 4th time in the 1937-38 season under the leadership of Giuseppe Meazza, whose name was later given to the team's stadium, and the first Coppa Italia championship in its history in the 1938-39 season.
The team won its 5th league championship in 1939-40 in Meazza's absence, and after these successes, it was promoted to the Second League Championship. World War II has started. The leagues, which were not organized for two seasons between the wars, started again and with the end of the fascism period, Inter took the current name "Football Club Internazionale Milano" again. The team won Serie A two seasons in a row, in 1952-53 and 1953-54.
The team entered one of the best periods in its history with consecutive championships, and these periods began to be known as "Grande Inter" (Big Inter). Helenio Herrera, who took charge of the team in these years, won Serie A three times in total and put the first star on the team's crest in the 1965-66 season.
In addition, the team played in the Champion Clubs' Cup final three times this season and won two of the three finals it played. The team won the cup against Real Madrid in one of the finals it played and against Benfica in the other, and was defeated by Celtic in the final it lost.
In the 1970s, the team won the league championship twice, in the 1970-71 and 1979-80 seasons, and the Coppa Italia championship once in the 1977-78 season. In addition, the team reached the final of the Champion Clubs' Cup in the 1971-72 season, but lost to Ajax in the final. In the following seasons, Internazionale became the Coppa Italia champion again in the 1981-82 season and the league champion in the 1988-89 season, and also won the Supercoppa Italiana for the first time by beating Sampdoria 2-0 in the same season.
Crisis period (1990–2005)
The 15-year period that started in 1990 was a disappointment for the Nerazzurri. Internazionale could not match the success achieved by Milan and Juventus in Europe, and they escaped relegation by 1 point in the 1993-94 season. The club's successes during this period were three UEFA Cups won in the 1990-91, 1993-94 and 1997-98 seasons.
In addition, it won two of these three European victories by beating the other Italian representatives, Roma and Lazio, in the final, while losing to the German representative Schalke on penalties in the 1996-97 UEFA Cup final.
After Massimo Moratti took over as president of the team in 1995, Inter made many important transfers such as Christian Vieri, Hernán Crespo and Ronaldo Nazário. In addition, he broke the record for the highest transfer fee of the period twice with the money he paid for these transfers. However, in these years, Inter could not win Serie A and the fans began to blame Moratti for the unsuccessful process that continued over time.
In particular, Moratti's termination of their coach Luigi Simoni's contract at the beginning of the season caused a crisis. In the ongoing 1998-99 season, Internazionale finished the league in 8th place and lost the chance to go to the European cups for the first time in 10 seasons. The following season, Inter became the finalists in the Supercoppa Italiana with a defeat against Lazio, and had an early farewell to the tournament by losing to Helsingborgs in the UEFA Champions League qualifying round.
At the same time, they finished the season in 4th place, having suffered defeats against their arch-rivals in the league that season, and finished the 2000-01 season in 5th place.
In the 2001-02 season, Inter, in addition to reaching the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup, also continued its chance of winning Serie A until the last week of the league. Along with the last league match against Lazio, the matches against rivals Juventus and Roma were also of great importance. While Inter lost the championship by 2 points by losing 4-2 with two goals conceded in the last minutes, Juventus became the champion by winning the match with Reggina.
The following season, Inter finished second in the league again and also became semi-finalists in the UEFA Champions League. Inter were eliminated by their arch-rival Milan in the semi-finals with the away goals rule, despite the aggregate score being 1-1, in both matches played at the same stadium. In the new season, the team underwent some changes, coach Hector Cuper and player Hernán Crespo were dismissed from the team in a short time, and players such as Adriano and Dejan Stankovic were brought to the team.
Resurgence period and peak (2005–2010)
The Coppa Italia won against Roma at the end of the 2004-05 season was the beginning of a revival period for Inter. The Nerazzurri also won the Supercoppa Italiana by defeating Juventus in the same season. Although Inter finished the league in third place in the 2005-06 season, within the scope of the match-fixing scandal revealed in Italy, they became the Serie A champion with 76 points, with the points deleted from Milan and Juventus, ending their 17-season league championship.
In the following 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons, they won championships in most of the competitions in Italy and, in addition to new transfers, Hernán Crespo was brought back to the team.
Before the 2008-09 season, which was about to start, the management dismissed Roberto Mancini as a result of his statements after the Liverpool match and appointed Jose Mourinho as coach. While this choice made Mourinho the only foreign coach in Serie A, it was also the step that started his team's golden season. Internazionale, which took on a very different team identity with the arrival of Mourinho, completed the league championship in the 2008-09 season and took all the cups it participated in to its museum by winning the Serie A, Coppa Italia, UEFA Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup in the 2009-10 season.
Moruinho expressed his desire to leave the club after winning the UEFA Champions League and then went to Spain's strong team, Real Madrid. Liverpool's Spanish coach Rafael Benitez filled the position of coach vacated by Mourinho. However, Benitez's Internazionale adventure was very short-lived, with a radical decision taken by the president Massimo Moratti, who appointed Leonardo Araújo, the legendary player of his arch-rival Milan and who also coached Milan last season, as the head of the team.
Pause (2010–2020)
After years full of trophies and being champions of the league for 5 consecutive seasons, Inter's other seasons were disappointing. After the 2009-10 season, in which it won all the trophies, it only won the 2010-11 Coppa Italia. In the 2011 Supercoppa Italiana, they lost 2-1 to Milan, the league champion of the season.
The blue-black team, which has not been able to show its presence in the league and other competitions since this season, came closest to the league championship in the 2019-20 season after 10 seasons, finishing 2nd in the league with 82 points after Juventus, with a difference of 1 point, and then reached the final in the UEFA Europa League, but lost 3-2 to Sevilla in the final.
Resurgence and present (2020–)
After the negative seasons, before the start of the 2020-21 season, important names such as Hakimi, Barella, Vidal, Sanchez, Perisic were transferred to the team under the leadership of Antonio Conte, while names such as Mauro Icardi parted ways. The blue-black team achieved positive results from these transfers and managed to become the champion in Serie A after 11 seasons and increased its league championship to 19. Thus, Juventus' 9-season championship run in the league ended.
After the season ended, an agreement could not be reached with Antonio Conte and it was decided to part ways and start the 2021-22 season with Simone Inzaghi. Before the new season, the team was strengthened by transferring names such as Dumfries, Edin Džeko and Hakan Çalhanoğlu from Milan. During the mid-season break, Robin Gosens was transferred to the team.
At the beginning of the season, they faced Coppa Italia champion Juventus in the Super Cup, and they took this cup to their museum after 11 seasons, with the goal scored by Alexis Sánchez in the 120+1 minute of the match, whose normal time ended 1-1. The blue-black team, which reached the final of the successful Italian Cup, faced Juventus again in the final.
Milan team won the match 4-2 and declared the Coppa Italia championship for the 8th time after 11 seasons. In the same season, they beat Serie A champion Milan in the Super Cup and won this cup for the 7th time.
In addition to repeating its Coppa Italia and Super Cup successes in the following season and taking these trophies back to its museum, it managed to reach the final of the UEFA Champions League, but lost 1-0 to the English team Manchester City in the final, and finished third in the league with 72 points, after Lazio.
In the 2023-24 season, the team defeated Milan 2-1 in the Milan derby, 5 weeks before the end of the league, and won its 20th championship in the league, wearing the second star on its crest, while in the same season, in the Coppa Italia, it was eliminated by Bologna in the last 16 rounds, losing 2-1 in extra time. Additionally, on 22 May 2024, Oaktree Capital Management assumed ownership of the club following non-payment by Suning Holdings Group of a significant loan of €395 million granted to the club in May 2021 by the company Oaktree Capital Management to cover losses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This development was confirmed by Oaktree in an emailed statement. As a result, the new ownership chose to appoint CEO Giuseppe Marotta as the new president of the club.
The team, which made a very good start to the 2024-25 season, could not maintain this good start at the end of the season and drew 2-2 with Lazio at home in the 37th week of the league and finished the season in second place with 81 points, one point behind Napoli with 82 points. In the Coppa Italia, Inter was eliminated by its arch-rival Milan with a total score of 4-1 at the end of two matches in the semi-final stage, and in the Supercoppa Italiana, it came in second, again losing to Milan 3-2.
The team, which managed to reach the final in the UEFA Champions League, was defeated by the French team Paris Saint-Germain with a score of 5-0 in the final, and was also defeated in its second UEFA Champions League final in the last three seasons. At the end of the season, Simone Inzaghi parted ways and Cristian Chivu, one of the team's former players, was appointed as the team's coach.
Internazionale, which started the 2025-26 season with Cristian Chivu, was able to maintain its good start to the season and declared its 21st championship in the league by beating Parma at home in the 35th week of the league. In the Coppa Italia, it reached the final by eliminating Venezia, Torino and Como respectively, and won the Coppa Italia championship for the 10th time by beating Lazio 2-0 in the final, while also achieving a local double by becoming both league and cup champions for the first time in 16 seasons after the 2009-10 season.
In this season's UEFA Champions League, the blue-blacks finished the league stage in 10th place and advanced to the next round, but were eliminated by their rival Bodø/Glimt in the next round with a score of 5-2 after two matches.
Cast
Current squad
- As of 1 July 2025
Managers
Internazionale has had 57 coaches throughout its history. The first of these is Virgilio Fossati, while Helenio Herrera holds the title of the longest-serving coach in Internazionale history with his 9-year stay in the team.
club presidents
Internazionale has had 22 presidents throughout its history. Some were considered honorary presidents, while others also served as owners of the club.
Coat of arms and colors
Internazionale has used blue and black colors in its striped jersey throughout its history. Blue represents day and black represents darkness. During the fascism period, the club's name and logo changed, and the jerseys symbolized the Milan flag, which was white and in the shape of a red cross. While there are no other color changes, Inter still uses the blue-black jersey.
The red-white jersey was used only in the away jersey format. The club's logo has changed many times over the years.
Inter's most famous nicknames are Nerazzurri, meaning blue-blacks, and I Biscione, meaning natrix snake. The reason for its nickname "Snake" is that it has a historical value for the city of Milan.
Rivalry and fans
Internazionale is the club with the second most fans in Italy, according to surveys. However, it ranks first in terms of the number of fans attending the stadium and subscription sales. Its fans generally live in Milan, but it has fans all over Italy and the world.
The main fan groups supporting Inter are fan groups such as Boys San, Viking, Irriducibili, Ultras, Brianza Alcoolica. In addition to the support they give to the team, the fans are also known for the events they organize. The most obvious example of this is the UEFA Champions League quarter-final match of the 2004-05 season against their arch-rival Milan, when a foreign object was thrown from the stands at the goalkeeper of the Red-Blacks, Dida, causing the player to injure his shoulder.
After the incident, the match was suspended and Milan was deemed the winner by default and advanced to the next round.
The team has an arch-rivalry with Milan, where they are located in the same city, called the Milan derby. In addition, their other arch-rivals are Juventus, Napoli and Rome, which are other strong teams in the league.
