Sport is revisiting the frame that turned Marco Materazzi and Rui Costa into a lasting symbol of the Milan rivalry, 21 years after it was taken and as the latest derby was set for live coverage on Two and iPlayer at 19:45 GMT on Saturday, 31 October. The photograph caught a strange pause in the middle of a match that was already coming apart around it.
Stefano Rellandini said he saw the moment only because he was looking past the smoke. Everyone else was focused on flares and the chaos around San Siro, but near the centre of the pitch he noticed Materazzi, the Inter defender he described as almost a butcher, leaning on the shoulder of Rui Costa, whom he saw as the softer, more artistic opposite. He said that for several seconds Materazzi rested his elbow there, and when the image lined up, he took just one frame. That was the shot that stayed.
The picture came from the end of AC Milan and Inter Milan's 2005 Champions League quarter-final, a second leg that was abandoned after flares and other objects rained on to the turf from a section of Inter fans. One object struck and injured Milan goalkeeper Dida, and the referee stopped the match after 73 minutes. Milan were then awarded the tie, and they were leading 3-0 on aggregate when that decision was made.
Rellandini, who was working for at the time, said the atmosphere had already felt bigger than a normal match. He described the supporter choreography as huge and said that when you stepped on to the pitch, you could feel it was not just a soccer match. The turning point, he said, was the disallowed goal from Esteban Cambiasso. After that, the reaction from Inter supporters intensified and did not stop for about 15 or 20 minutes, with objects and flares thrown down in what he called something like a war.
That is why the image still endures. It does not show the explosion around it; it shows the calm inside it, the split second when a match that had turned violent was distilled into a single, almost quiet gesture between two players from opposite sides of the same city. The latest derby may be a new fixture on the schedule, but the older one still lives in that frame.
