When Davin O'Dwyerenters the cauldron of the San Siro, in Milan, to witness the end of an era, the drama and tension rival those at La Scala
APPROACHING MILAN'S San Siro stadium for the first time on the night of a match is the footballing equivalent of seeing the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Turning the corner at Via dei Rospigliosi and Via Piccolomini, you are confronted with an overwhelming structure reaching up before you.
The shafts of light emanating from the spiral ramps wind out of the ground and up into the night's darkness like so many colossal corkscrews. The deep glow from its brooding roof, huge girders sitting at emphatic right angles to those legs, as if straining to keep the arena earthbound, and the flood of colour illuminating the heavy night-time clouds above are awe-inspiring.
Milan is famous for fashion, finance and football, but it was the latter that brought me to Italy's haughtiest city.
I started following soccer when Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard were dazzling the game in the late 1980s for both The Netherlands and their club, AC Milan. But while the Dutch trio were the marquee names, that side boasted at least two other footballing legends: the indomitable Franco Baresi and the precocious Paolo Maldini.
For me, falling in love with soccer was inextricably linked with falling in love with that glorious team, and although I now follow the English Premier League more avidly than Italy's Serie A, a childhood loyalty like that can't be easily broken.
Maldini is the last member of that team still playing, and he recently promised to retire this summer, when, astonishingly, he turns 40 (he even played against us in the 1990 World Cup, when Toto Schillaci brought our Italian dreams to an end). Maldini is not just an emblem of the club and the city; he has also, in a way, achieved the status of one of those Italian prestige brands whose names exude enduring quality: Maserati, Fendi, Armani, Ferrari.
I was determined to see him play in the red-and-black jersey before he retired, and so I made my way to Italy to see AC Milan take on Arsenal in the Champions League - after all, I figured, it could very well be the last game he plays under the San Siro's floodlights.
As a city, Milan appears to pride itself on its unremarkable urban surfaces, as if being too pretty is an admission of superficiality, as if appealing to tourists is beneath a place of real economic activity. It doesn't dazzle like Venice, charm like Florence or seduce like Rome. But while the attractions are few, the overall effect is impressive. Milan might be hard to love, but it demands to be admired.
There is da Vinci's Last Supper, requiring advance booking, decaying but still powerful by all accounts. The famed Duomo cathedral is resplendent since its most recent cleaning - it now resembles an ornate ice sculpture, but with its spires melting upwards, towards the sky.
There's La Scala, so unprepossessing from the outside, looking like a district courthouse in Ennis or Carlow, while inside, of course, it boasts the most luxurious auditorium and the most admired acoustics in all of operadom.
The Galleria Vittorio Eman-uele, leading from La Scala to Piazza Duomo, is a captivating monument to 19th-century engineering, a glorious, soaring, exhilarating space, rendering pathetic our modern malls.
But the most alive of all these attractions is the Giuseppe Meazza stadium, or San Siro as it is usually called, which AC Milan share with city rivals Internazionale.
It is simultaneously belligerent and graceful, brutalist and beautiful - where the duomo boasts stonework of the finest filigree, the San Siro is an uncompromising mass. Inside, it's a cauldron, with sheer sides of singing fans and colour and, for evening games, bright light.
The most dedicated fans, or ultras, take their seats early in the curvas, the upper tiers behind each goal. The Arsenal fans are in the gods in the curva nord and gamely try to compete with the home crowd's riotous singing. When the announcer theatrically calls out each Milan player's first name, the crowd responds with his surname, the stands juddering with the deafening roar of "Gattuso", "Pirlo", "Kaká" and so on.
Sitting near the touchline, you can appreciate Maldini's positioning, Alessandro Nesta's tackling and Kaká's silky touches far better than you can on television.
As the game wears on, it is the Arsenal fans who sing loudest, their team's fluid football and dizzying pace gradually overwhelming the vastly experienced Milan. With every mazy run from Alexander Hleb or precise pass from Cesc Fabregas, the Milan crowd tenses. Milan's young Brazilian, Alexandre Pato, is peripheral and frustrated, the ageing legs of Filippo Inzaghi no longer a goal threat. Late goals from Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor bring deserved victory to Arsenal.
Just after the final whistle, as the Arsenal players celebrate and the Milan players soberly realise their era has drawn to a close, the entire crowd of nearly 80,000 Milanese fans rises and applauds the team from London. It's a spine-tingling moment but typical of the occasion and of the city. Maldini, his side's best performer on the night, bows his head, swaps his jersey and begins to ponder whether he might extend his career for another year, and have one more tilt at Serie A and the Champions League. The San Siro is a footballing Mecca, and, for just one more season, it might have the grandest legend in the game gracing its stage.
Go there
Aer Lingus flies regularly from Dublin to Milan Linate, close to the city centre, and Milan Malpensa, a larger airport 35km away. Ryanair flies daily from Dublin to Bergamo, about 50km northeast of Milan.
You can buy tickets for most AC Milan and Inter Serie A weekend matches at the stadium two hours in advance of the game. You can buy tickets for AC Milan home games a few days before the match at branches of Banca Intesa or at Milan Point on Corso San Gottardo.
Prices range from €11 in the top tiers behind the ultras to €80 for excellent seats alongside the pitch. The most expensive tickets cost up to €270.
Many hotels will source tickets for you, but you will pay a significant premium. The large online ticket agencies selling tickets and hotel packages are effectively touts and charge an exorbitant premium.
See www.acmilan.com or www.inter.it/en for more.