12 August 1990 - And The Game Hasn't Been The Same Since

On 12 August 1990, striker Mario Balotelli, the first black player to score for Italy, was born in Palermo.

His parents were Ghanaian immigrants who, when Balotelli was three years old, placed him in foster care at the recommendation of social services because they could not afford medical care. From that point on, he was raised by the Balotelli family and, at the age of 18, he became an Italian citizen.

He started his professional career in 2006 with Lumezzane, but made only two league appearances there before moving to Inter in 2007. In three seasons there, he helped the club to three Scudettos, but fell out with manager José Mourinho, who had replaced Roberto Mancini for Balotelli's last two seasons. In 2010, the striker followed Mancini to Manchester City, where he remained for two and half years, winning the 2011 FA Cup and the 2012 Premier League title, before moving back to Italy with AC Milan.

Balotelli earned his first cap for Italy in 2010 and scored his first international goal in November 2011—the first for a black player. Since then, he has scored ten goals in 25 appearances, including both goals in Italy's 2-1 quarterfinal win over Germany at Euro 2012.

Despite his talent, Balotelli has drawn heavy criticism for a lack of discipline both on and off the pitch, including disputes with teammates and a scuffle with Mancini while at Manchester City. One of his most memorable incidents, however, was nearly setting his house on fire while shooting off fireworks inside.

7 June 1970 - With That Many, He Could Open His Own Millinery

On 7 June 1970, Marcos Evangelista de Moraes, better known as "Cafu," was born in São Paulo. He went on to become Brazil's all-time appearances leader with 142 caps.

A right back, Cafu started his professional career with São Paulo in 1990 and played there for five seasons before moving to Spain in 1994 to play for Real Zaragoza. But after only one season in La Liga, he returned to Brazil, joining Palmeiras in 1995. Two years later, he was back in Europe, this time in Italy, where he spent the remainder of his career, first with Roma (1997-2003), then with Milan (2003-2008).

He won silverware at each step along the way, including multiple league titles in Brazil and Italy, the 1992 and 1993 Copa Libertadores and Intercontinental Cups with São Paulo, the 1995 Cup Winners' Cup with Zaragoza, and the 2007 Champions League with Milan. (His only trophy with Palmeiras was a local one, the 1996 Campeonato Paulista).

But despite those successes, he is best known for his time with the Brazilian national team. After earning his first cap in 1990, he was a member of the teams that won the 1994 and 2002 World Cups (appearing primarily as a substitute in the former), as well as two Copa América titles in 1997 and 1999. His last appearance, however, came during their disappointing 2006 World Cup, as a 1-0 loss to France eliminated Brazil in the quarterfinals.

26 May 1993 - I Hope They Enjoyed It While It Lasted

On 26 May 1993, Marseille won the Champions League trophy, but they were not allowed to defend it the following season.

Under the auspices of club president Bernard Tapie, Marseille rose to elite status in the late 1980s and early 1990s, winning four consecutive Ligue 1 titles from 1989 to 1992. They also reached the European Cup final in 1991, but lost to Red Star Belgrade in a penalty shootout, 0-0 (5-3).

After a disappointing second-round exit from the tournament in 1991-92, they returned to the final in 1993, where they met four-time champions AC Milan in Munich. Although the game featured three of the tournament's four top scorers--Marco van Basten for Milan and Franck Sauzée and Alen Bokšić for Marseille--an unheralded player scored the day's only goal, as Marseille center back Basile Boli found the back of the net in the 43rd minute. They remain the only French club to win the competition.

French authorities subsequently found Tapie and Marseille guilty of match-fixing during the 1992-93 Ligue 1 season. As a result, they were stripped of their 1993 league title and demoted to Ligue 2 for the next season. They were allowed to keep their Champions League trophy, but were barred from participating in the 1993-94 tournament.

13 May 2012 - Invincibles In Italy

On 13 May 2012, Juventus completed the Serie A season as undefeated champions with a 3-1 win over Atalanta.

They had finished the previous season in disappointing fashion, taking seventh place in the final table. That prompted the sacking of manager Luigi Delneri, who had held on to the post for a little over a year. The club replaced him with former Juventus midfielder Antonio Conte, who had played there from 1991 to 2003 and who had ended the 2010-11 season by guiding Serie B side Siena back to the top flight.

Juve made one other significant change over the summer, signing former Milan midfielder Andrea Pirlo as a free agent.

Led by the combination of Conte on the touchline and Pirlo on the pitch, Juventus battled with Milan in a tight race for the Scudetto and finally claimed the title with an away win over Cagliari on 6 May. By that point, they had won 22 and drawn 15 of their 37 matches over the course of the season. One week later, with the championship firmly in hand, they completed their unbeaten season with the home win over Atalanta. It was the first time any team went undefeated over the course of a 38-game season and only the third undefeated Serie A season overall (Perugia did it over the course of 30 games in 1978-79 and Milan did it over the course of 34 games in 1991-92).

Counting a draw on the last day of the 2010-11 season, the win stretched Juve's overall unbeaten league streak to 39. They extended it to 49 through the first 10 games of the 2012-13 season before finally losing to Inter on 3 November. Though impressive, it still fell short of the overall Italian league record of 58, set by Milan over the course of the 1990-91 to 1992-93 seasons.

22 April 1982 - He Really Didn't Merit That Nickname

 On 22 April 1982, Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, better known as Kaká, was born in Gama, Brazil. He went on to win the Ballon d'Or and World Player of the Year award in 2007.

An attacking midfielder, he started his career with São Paulo, joining their youth academy in 1994, then signing with the club as a professional in 2001. He remained there for a little over two seasons, making 59 league appearances and scoring 23 goals. That attracted the interest of AC Milan, who signed him in the summer of 2003 for a transfer fee of €8.5 million.

An accomplished provider of assists in addition to goals, Kaká helped Milan to the league title in his first season there. In 2005, they reached the Champions League final, but lost to Liverpool. Both teams returned to the final in 2007, with Milan winning 2-1. Kaká was the tournament's top scorer. Later that year, Milan won the Club World Cup and Kaká claimed the Ballon d'Or and the World Footballer of the Year award.

In the summer of 2009, he moved to Real Madrid for a transfer fee of €68.5 million, an amount that, at the time, was the second-highest in history after the €76 million Real Madrid paid for Zinedine Zidane in 2001. (It dropped to third after the club signed Cristiano Ronaldo for €94 million in later in the summer of 2009).

At Madrid, has battled through injuries, but has still made made over 80 appearances there and helped them win the league title in 2012.

19 March 1976 - A Born Defender

On 19 March 1976, four-time Serie A Defender of the Year Alessandro Nesta was born in Rome.

He started his career at Lazio, joining their youth academy in 1985. They tried him at striker and midfielder before establishing him at center back. In 1993, he signed a professional contract and became an established starter during the 1995-96 season, making a total of 28 appearances.

By 1997, he had become Lazio's captain and led the team to the 1998 Coppa Italia, followed by the 1999 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. In 2000, he won a second Coppa Italia that was paired with the club's first league title since 1974. That season also saw him win the first of four consecutive Serie A Defender of the Year awards.

In the summer of 2002, he moved to AC Milan in a deal worth €31M. In ten seasons there, he won another pair of Scudettos (2004, 2011), a Coppa Italia (2003), two Champions League titles (2003, 2007), and the FIFA Club World Cup (2007).

Along the way, he made 78 appearances for Italy between 1996 and 2006, though he missed the 2006 World Cup Final due to injury.

Nesta currently plays in MLS for the Montreal Impact, having joined them on a free transfer in the summer of 2012.

13 March 2011 - A Good Reason To Get There Early

On 13 March 2011, attendees at Milan's match against Bari witnessed a warm-up routine that seemed unreal--because it was.

Milan, who were sitting at the top of the Serie A table while riding an eleven-game unbeaten streak, hosted Bari, the league's bottom team, at the San Siro. While the crowd filtered in, players from both teams took the pitch to warm up. And that's when things got weird.

Instead of the usual warm-up routine, the players engaged in some eccentric activities. Several of them started dancing, with Gennaro Gattuso pairing up with the referee for a bit of ballet. Clarence Seedorf started boxing and Zlatan Ibrahimović tossed a frisbee around. One player donned a swim cap and pretended to swim, while another lay down on the pitch with a newspaper.

As it turned out, all of the players were look-alikes provided by Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport as a publicity stunt.

The match itself was no less interesting, as Bari managed a 1-1 draw thanks in part to Ibrahimović's ejection for punching Bari's Cartellino Rosso. It wasn't much help for Bari, though, who ended the season at the bottom of the table while Milan won the title.

12 February 2007 - Kaká Turns Italian

On 12 February 2007, AC Milan and Brazil star Kaká became an Italian citizen. But he continues to play for Brazil.

The midfielder joined Milan in 2003 after two seasons with São Paulo. The Italian side paid €8.5M for him and he immediately started providing dividends for them, scoring a total of 14 goals in 44 appearances across all competitions in his first year there as Milan won both the league and the Supercoppa Italiana and he was named the 2004 Serie A Player of the Year.

He got off to a strong start at the beginning of the  2006-07 season, which would ultimately result in him winning the 2007 Ballon d'Or. In the middle of the season, he applied for Italian citizenship, which was granted and made official in a private ceremony on 12 February.

The move was not intended to alter his international status, as he was already locked into playing for Brazil and ineligible to play for Italy. (He also maintained his Brazilian citizenship). Instead, the move allowed Milan to claim him as a European Union player for UEFA quotas, opening up a spot in the team for a non-EU player. After the ceremony, Kaká said "It is an honor. Now I both Italian and Brazilian. I am very happy. This helps not only me, but also Milan."

He remained with Milan until June 2009, when he moved to Real Madrid, his current club, in a deal worth €68.5M.

24 December 2010 - Leonardo Crosses Milan's Version Of The Rubicon

On 24 December 2010, Inter announced their new manager, taking former Milan hero Leonardo away from their rival club.

A World-Cup winning Brazilian international, Leonardo made 119 appearances for Milan from 1997 to 2001, then another five in the 2002-03 before calling an end to his playing career. While there, he won the 1999 Scudetto and the 2003 Coppa Italia.

In 2008, he returned to the club in the position of technical director, then took over as manager in June 2009 after the departure of boss Carlo Ancelotti to Chelsea. But he failed to lift the Rossoneri's fortunes and rumors of an early departure swirled throughout the season. Finally, in April 2010, the club confirmed that Leonardo would depart at the end of the season.

At the time of his departure from Milan, Inter had made a change of their own, replacing departing manager José Mourinho with former Liverpool boss Rafa Benítez. But that hire lasted only six months, as a split between Benítez and the Inter board, fueled in part by the new manager's inability to live up to the standard set by Mourinho, led to his dismissal in December 2010.

Inter then brought Leonardo in to fill the vacant position, making him the fifth manager to switch from Milan to their derby rivals. His time at Inter lasted even less than at AC Milan, however, ending with his resignation in June 2011. One month later, he joined Paris Saint-Germain as their director of football, where he remains at present.

1 December 1994 - Experience Isn't Always Enough

On 1 December 1994, Vélez Sársfield won the Intercontinental Cup, beating three-time champions AC Milan 2-0.

It was the first appearance in the competition for Vélez, who had just won the Copa Libertadores that summer. Their opponents were the defending European Cup champions, AC Milan, who had been in the Intercontinental Cup five times, winning it three times. Their most recent appearance was in 1993, when they lost to São Paulo. So they were looking for redemption the following year against Vélez.

But the Argentinians were prepared for the challenge. Playing before a crowd of almost 48,000 at the National Stadium in Tokyo, they kept them game locked in a scoreless draw at the break. Then, in the second half, they got a pair of goals in an 8-minute span to secure the trophy.

The first goal came through a penalty, converted by defender Roberto Trotta in the 50th minute. In the 57th minute, forward Omar Asad scored an incredible second goal, racing into the box to intercept a poor Milan pass back to the keeper, then turning and firing into the net from a tight angle. The effort led to him being named Man of the Match and took the final score to 2-0.

3 November 2010 - Inzaghi Becomes King Of Europe

On 3 November 2010, Milan striker Filippo "Pippo" Inzaghi scored his 70th goal in European competition to share the honors as UEFA's top scorer. Briefly.

The goal came in a Champions League group stage match against Real Madrid, who had beaten Milan 2-0 in Spain the previous month. Playing before a crowd of 76,357 in the return leg at the San Siro, Real Madrid took the lead with a 45th-minute score from Gonzalo Higuaín. But in the second half, Inzaghi struck twice to put Milan ahead.

His first goal of the day was a 68th-minute header that took advantage of a rare mistake from Real Madrid keeper Iker Casillas. He struck again ten minutes later to notch his 70th goal in UEFA competitions, matching the record set by former Real Madrid forward Raúl González, who had moved to Schalke earlier that year.

Unfortunately for Milan, the lead did not last, as Madrid winger Pedro León scored an equalizer in the fourth minute of stoppage time to earn a 2-2 draw. Inzaghi's share of the record did not last long either, as Raúl scored three months later in Schalke's 1-0 win over Valencia in the Round of 16 to push his total to 71 and claim sole honors as Europe's leading marksman.

19 September 1926 - The San Siro Sees Action

On 19 September 1926, Milan and Inter inaugurated the San Siro with a friendly. Inter won, 3-6.

Although the two teams share the stadium now, it originally belonged to Milan. The idea for the new stadium came from club president Piero Pirelli, who also funded the 5 million lire construction cost. Contrary to the multi-use model of most Italian grounds at the time, architect Ulisse Stacchini rejected the inclusion of a track surrounding the pitch in order to create a more intimate setting for the stadium's capacity crowd of 35,000.

Named the New San Siro Football Stadium after the district in which it is located, the new stadium did not have an auspicious start for Milan, as they lost that first match to Inter, 3-6, then lost their first league match there as well.

The club sold the stadium to the city of Milan in 1935, but the Rossoneri remained the sole occupant until 1947, when Inter became joint tenants. In 1980, it was offiicially renamed after Milan and Inter star Giuseppe Meazza, but it is still commonly referred to as the San Siro.

It has since undergone several expansions and currently holds a capacity of 80,018.

13 September 2011 - Pato's Quick Strike

On 13 September 2011, Milan got their Champions League campaign underway with a goal from Alexandre Pato in the first minute against Barcelona. They then capped their day with a 92nd-minute goal from Thiago Silva to earn a 2-2 draw with the defending champions.

Pato's opener came after just 25 seconds as Pato sped between Barcelona defenders Javier Mascherano and Sergio Busquest and slotted the ball under goalkeeper Victor Valdes. It is the fastest goal ever scored on the opening day of the tournament's group stage and the fifth fastest in the overall history of the competition (Bayern Munich's Roy Makaay has the fastest, scoring in just over ten seconds against Real Madrid in July 2007).

Barcelona equalized with a goal from Pedro in the 36th minute, then took the lead with a 50th-minute strike from David Villa. But Silva's stoppage-time goal earned a point for Milan.

Both teams advanced from the group stage and met again in the quarterfinals, with Barcelona winning 3-1 on aggregate.

31 August 2007 - Sevilla Can't Be Super A Second Time

On 31 August 2007, AC Milan spoiled Sevilla's bid to repeat as Super Cup champions, beating the Spanish side 3-1 in Monaco.

Sevilla, as winners of the UEFA Cup in 2005, played their first Super Cup in 2006, beating the reigning Champions League winners Barcelona 0-3. They won the UEFA Cup again in 2006 to set up their 2007 meeting with that year's Champions League winners, AC Milan.

Playing before a crowd of 17,822 at the Stade Louis II, Sevilla staked their claim with a 14th-minute goal from Brazilian playmaker Renato. The score resulted from a corner kick that Renato headed down to the feet of Milan keeper Dida, who misjudged the bounce and allowed the ball to get past him into the net. Despite pressure from Milan at the other end, particularly from striker Pippo Inzaghi, Sevilla still held the 0-1 lead at the break.

Shortly after the restart, however, Inzaghi headed the equalizer home (55') and Milan claimed the lead seven minutes later with a thundering volley from left back Marek Jankulovski to the far post (62'). Milan sealed the win in the 87th minute after Sevilla left back Ivica Dragutinović conceded a penalty with a tackle from behind on Madrid striker Kaká, who dutifully converted the kick to stretch the margin of victory to 3-1.

9 August 1973 - Inzaghi Crosses The Line

On 9 August 1973, Italian striker Filippo "Pippo" Inzaghi was born in Piacenza. He went on to become one of the country's most prolific scorers.

He signed his first professional contract in 1991, joining his hometown club, Piacenza Calcio, but made only three appearances before moving to Leffe in 1992. A series of other moves followed, including stays at Verona, another turn at Piacenza, Parma, and Atalanta before he joined Juventus in 1997.

In his first season with Juve, he scored a career-high 27 goals in 47 appearances across all competitions as the club won Serie A and reached the Champions League final. After four seasons in Turin, he moved to AC Milan, where he proceeded to win two more league titles (2004, 2011) and two Champions League trophies (2003, 2007). Meanwhile, he also won the World Cup with Italy in 2006.

Known for playing on the edge of the offside line, his style of play once prompted Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson to say "That lad must have been born offside." He retired in 2012, having scored a career total 288 goals in 623 club appearances (with another 25 goals for the national team). Seventy of those goals came in UEFA club competitions, ranking him second overall in that category just behind Raúl González (77).