That’s the funny thing about end of eras, one never really knows it’s ending until well after the fact.
AC Milan vs Juventus in May 2005 at the time just seemed another big clash, even if the stakes were raised due to it being a Scudetto showdown. Yet in hindsight it was the beginning of the end.
In one of the great Italian title races, these two sides, both among the best in Europe, went toe-to-toe throughout the season.
Title races between Milan and Juve aren’t actually that common. Throughout Juve’s domestic dominance in the mid 1980s, Milan were nowhere to be found, with stints in Serie B in stark contrast to Giovanni Trapattoni’s title-winning machine.
When the roles reversed and Milan dominated the early 1990s thanks to Silvio Berlusconi’s ambition, Juve’s second place finish in 1993-94 wasn’t so much as a challenge but more represented the best of the rest. In the two-points-per-win era, a three point gap was huge, especially against Fabio Capello’s ruthless Milan side of the time.
Later in the decade and into the 2000s, when either side won the title, the other usually wasn’t in the picture.
And so this brings us to 2004-05, when both really went for it.
Capello shocked many by switching from Roma to Juve in the summer of 2004 after declaring he’d never manage the team he served as a player. Capello had taken over from Marcello Lippi, after Lippi’s second stint in Turin petered out and he took over the Azzurri job from the outgoing Trapattoni.
Juve’s squad was tired and needed a lick of paint, and they got it in the final days of the 2004 transfer window, when Fabio Cannavaro and Zlatan Ibrahimovic arrived. It was one of the greatest windows Luciano Moggi ever produced, and it breathed new life into the Bianconeri.
Milan, meanwhile were about to enter their third full season under Carlo Ancelotti. Despite a monumental collapse against Deportiva La Coruna in the Champions League quarter-finals the previous April, Milan still had a legitimate claim to being the best side in Europe.
Andriy Shevchenko was at the peak of his majestic powers, while Kaka was morphing into the world-class talent he would later become. Meanwhile, Andrea Pirlo, Clarence Seedorf and Gennaro Gattuso was as good a midfield trio as there was at the time.
Defensively, Alessandro Nesta was his elegant self, while Paolo Maldini was still the world-class operator he’d seemingly always been and Cafu was bombing up and down the right-side.
Ancelotti’s squad had been further solidified with the signings of Hernan Crespo and Jaap Stam, the former on loan and the other as a free. This made Milan the strongest side in Italy by a distance.
From October onwards, both sides occupied the top two spots in Serie A and steamrolled everyone else. Throughout the season, Juve were the dour-but-effective machine under Capello, winning games with a minimum of fuss despite possessing players capable of so much more. Milan were the neutral’s favourite, a swashbuckling side who were much easier on the eye.
Juve broke away from Milan in the autumn and winter, but by the beginning of 2005 their lead had been reduced to just two points.
Early spring saw the two trade places at the top of the table. Champions League commitments saw both stutter in the league; Juve suffering surprise defeats at the hands of Palermo and Sampdoria, while Milan lost away to Siena.
Juve’s loss in the Derby d’Italia to Inter in late April gave Milan an opening. Seedorf’s late winner against Chievo meant that going into their clash in early May, with only four games left of the season to play, both were level on 76 points.
The stardust on display was, in retrospect, outrageous. There was a sea of world-class players on both teams, multiple match-winners and the current and previous Ballon d’Or winner on either side. Serie A’s never had it that good again.
The quality within the two sides didn’t translate to a barnstormer of a game, sadly. It was a cagey affair, with Capello’s Juve sticking to the defence-first ethos that had got them this far.
The game sprung into life just before the half-hour mark and Juve took the lead.
Ghanian midfielder Stephen Appiah received the ball just outside the Juve box and ventured forward before lofting a ball over to the left-hand side of the pitch for the Patrick Swayze doppelgänger Pavel Nedved to chase. The Czech raced towards the ball with Nesta, who for some odd reason took it upon himself to try and win the ball from his former Lazio teammate. Nedved got there first to keep it in play but was met with a crunching tackle that sent him hurtling to the ground over the touchline.
The ball travelled down the left-hand channel of the pitch where Alessandro Del Piero took control. Del Piero was met by the pit bull presence of Gattuso. However, the No10 easily skipped past him and made his way towards the box. Correctly sensing that Gattuso wouldn’t be too far behind him, he twisted and turned, looking to shake him off.
Del Piero made a yard of space, but his cross was blocked by Gattuso’s leg, the ball spun into the air back towards the edge of the box. With the ball behind Del Piero, he improvised, channelling his inner Diego Maradona to produce a marvellous overhead kick towards the penalty spot.
David Trezeguet had, as ever, been quiet in the match up to this point. Always the goal poacher, the Frenchman truly came alive inside the penalty box. He nipped in front of Maldini and into the massive space Nesta had left by his earlier escapade up the field to head the ball past an advancing Dida.
The Brazilian could only get a hand to the ball as it spun in slow motion into the net, one bounce at a time. Trezeguet ran immediately towards the man who made it possible, and Juve’s greatest attacking pair celebrated arm-in-arm.
Yet the goal may never have happened had Capello had his way . Much like he did with Roberto Baggio in 1995-96 at Milan, Capello took a similar disliking to Del Piero, substituting him 26 times in 2004-05.
Ibrahimovic was Capello’s first-choice to partner Trezeguet all season, but the Swede was suspended for the Milan game after being retrospectively banned following clashes with Ivan Cordoba and Sinisa Mihajlovic in the 1-0 loss to Inter. Ibrahimovic was given a three-game suspension, meaning he was out of the Scudetto clash.
Capello had little choice but to start Del Piero.
A man who shied away from controversy during his career (and even still now), Del Piero let his guard down just the once when talking about Capello, saying: “My relationship with Capello was not rewarding from many points of view, not only because I was little used. We had a different way of seeing things”.
Had Calciopoli not forced Capello to leave, Del Piero admitted that he might’ve done the unthinkable and walked away from Juve.
Yet by the same token, the only reason Trezeguet was still in Italy was due to to Capello. The Frenchman had been close to a summer move to Barcelona, only for the new manager to tell the Euro 2000 winner he wasn’t going anywhere.
The rest of the game saw little in the way of chances. The second half was scrappy as Milan tried to force their way back on level terms. The Rossoneri’s clearest chance came when Shevchenko fed Pippo Inzaghi following a counter attack down the left.
Inzaghi was preferred to Crespo by Ancelotti, and now it was just Super Pippo against Gigi Buffon in a one-vs-one. The Italian goalkeeper raced out to meet him, and Inzaghi’s shot was smothered by the Juve stopper, only for the ball to rebound back to Inzaghi, hitting off his shin and heading towards goal.
With the ball trickling in, Gianluca Zambrotta appeared out of nowhere to push Inzaghi off balance, forcing the striker to mishit the ball with the net open while also crashing into the post.
In a true clash of the titans, Juve emerged victorious by a single goal, and the Scudetto was all-but wrapped up with three games remaining.
Juve would, in the end, win Serie A by seven points, with the stuffing knocked out of Milan after the Scudetto defeat. Capello’s Juve were a hard team to like, even if you were of the Bianconeri persuasion. Milan, in truth, were a superior team, but Capello’s style was always more suited to a league campaign than the spontaneity of cup competitions, with Ancelotti arguably the opposite.
Ancelotti, meanwhile, put all his eggs in the Champions League basket, with that final against Liverpool on the horizon.
Enough has been written about Istanbul in the years since, but somehow Milan contrived to produce a bigger meltdown than the one in La Coruna. Ancelotti, miraculously, kept his job and would remain as Milan’s coach for a further four years.
As for Serie A, the end of the golden period was in sight. Calciopoli would arrive within a year, stars would leave and the league’s reputation has never really recovered. Clashes between Milan and Juve haven’t felt on this magnitude since. There were more world-class players on Milan’s team alone than in the entirety of the league in 2024.
The end was nigh. And like all glorious eras, you never truly appreciate it until it’s over.
