The Independent's Matthew Fearon offers a starting point to discover the greatest ever AC Milan XI. The Rossoneri missed out on a Champions League place this year and without their participation, European Cup football just doesn't feel quite right. Their revenge victory over Liverpool in 2007 was the seventh time the club had lifted football’s most glittering club prize. Of the starting XI on that May night, two make it into this Dream Team to play alongside Milan legends with enough silverware between them to pay Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension for at least the next few years... but no Giovanni Lodetti, Jose Altafini, Filippo Galli, Alessandro Nesta, Lorenzo Buffon, Sebastiano Rossi, Mauro Tassotti, George Weah, Demetrio Albertini, Marcel Desailly, Daniele Massaro, Andriy Shevchenko or Juan Alberto Schiaffino? And playing a 3-5-2?
Fabio Cudicini
Goalkeeper
AC Milan 1967-72; 183 appearances
The father of White Hart Lane's Carlo, his shadow has chased his son throughout the younger Cudicini's unfulfilled career. Father Fabio, whose presence and acrobatic qualities earned him the sobriquet, 'Ragno Nero' or Black Spider. The nickname pinpoints his place in the highest echelons of keepers in that it honours an ability that brought frequent comparisons to his contemporary Lev Yashin, the impermeable 'Black Octopus'.
Longer of leg, bigger of body and with the reflexes to leave a stain on the mind of any striker, Yashin elevated goalkeeping to an art form. Cudicini was a willing disciple and that his dexterity permits him to have his name uttered in the same sentence as Yashin sees him take the No.1 jersey ahead of Lorenzo Buffon, and the man who never had to make a save, Sebastiano Rossi.
Paolo Maldini
Defender
AC Milan 1985-present; 891 appearances, 33 goals
What Shane Warne did for the art of legspin, Paolo Maldini did for the art of defending. It has been rumoured that he sweats black and red, such is his devotion to Milan, but this remains unconfirmed as his soothsayer vision waives any need to perspire. By the time Maldini's current team-mate, Pato, was born in September 1989, Il Capitano had already made 150 appearances for the Rossoneri and was an established member of the Italian national side.
He won his first Scudetto in 1988, what looks like his last in 2004, and in between picked up another five to go with the European Cups that he can count on one hand (just); but the trophies are mere decoration to an outstanding talent. Like Cruyff and his turn, Maldini has trademarked his own touch of skill: a sliding tackle of exact timing and execution, the purpose being repossession not demolition. Leading with the left leg, his foot wraps around the ball and, instead of a clearance, he traps the ball between left foot and right knee, rising in one motion with the ball at his feet and an attacker searching for a throw in that never comes - the Maldini.
Franco Baresi
Defender
AC Milan 1977-97; Appearances: 719; Goals: 33
It is tempting to consider that Baresi's young apprentice, Paolo Maldini, made a Faustian pact of the kind that preserved Dorian Grey's beauty. To continue with the analogy would see Baresi as Basil Hallward's portrait, ravaged by the experiences of his eternally youthful alter ego. When he made his Milan debut as a seventeen-year-old, Baresi already resembled the gnarled warrior he would become 719 first team appearances later; to confirm this impression, he played as if he had all the wisdom of one who has lived many lives.
His six Scudettos match the number that adorned his shirt and has now been retired by the club, an act due to be repeated with Maldini's No.3 at the end of the season. He also captained the side to the European Cup in 1989 and 1990 but suspension meant he missed out on the 4-0 victory over Barcelona in the 1994 final. A player for the ages, whose role in Maldini's development could only have been achieved at a club for whom lineage and history is of paramount importance. Unlike Oscar Wilde's creation, Baresi's footballing aesthetic was not that of the extravagant hedonist, his beauty lay in consistency, reliability and leadership.
Alessandro Costacurta
Defender
AC Milan 1986-2007; 662 appearances, 3 goals
Alessandro Costacurta is the third and final member of the dream team's defensive trio; a back-line that could be more closely described as a collection of oracles such is their prophetic reading of the game. The three played together for ten years and turned Sebastiano Rossi into a mere spectator on the pitch. Costacurta's seven Scudettos spanned a 16-year period and were topped up by collecting the same five European Cup winners' medals as Paolo Maldini.
Not particularly tall for a centre-half, his speed over short distances and immaculate perception cut out the need to compete for headers. He often gave the impression he was involved in a conspiracy with the ball, of which the opposing attacker remained uninitiated. It is only the presence of such a superior midfield and strike-force that removes the need to include the fourth of that great back-line, Mauro Tassotti, who can consider his omission desperately unlucky.
Ruud Gullit
Free role
AC Milan 1987-1993 and 1994, 171 appearances, 56 goals
Before the time billionaires existed, when the Premier League was European football's poor relation, financially and technically, English football fans were restricted to admiring only the fading skills of the great players of the age. Already in his mid-thirties when he arrived at Chelsea, Gullit's days as the driving force behind Milan's great midfield of the '80s and '90s now belonged to the highlight reels and now youtube. Nevertheless, he dazzled briefly and, Cantona aside, there was no better player in the league in 1995-96.
He played high-up the pitch in a front-three; as a sweeper; a holding midfielder; a free-scoring midfielder; but, for this dream team, he can play anywhere he damn well wants. He was European Footballer of the Year in 1987, an award the enlightened Gullit dedicated to Nelson Mandela, long before he had become Morgan Freeman. Whether it was down to his raging lion's mane or not, there have been very few footballers, before or since, who were blessed with the heading ability that converted his skull into a weapon as lethal as either of his feet. That he should be remembered in this country for uttering the phrase "sexy football" at once captures his footballing style and, at the same time, reveals our ignorance of his brilliance.
Gianni Rivera
Centre midfielder
AC Milan 1960-79; 658 appearances, 164 goals
Gianni Rivera's talent makes a mockery of any claims to the technical advancement of the game over the last 15 years. Faster, yes; fitter, yes; better diets, yes; richer, yes; more skilful, not a chance. The other attributes are negated by relativity, skill is innate and then it is down to the individual to eke out every last drop, whatever the era or competition. Rivera glided past Mario Coluna in the sixties, Norman Hunter in the seventies and, had Italian football's golden boy continued playing, he would have done the same to Passarella in the eighties.
In the nineties he'd have been lucky enough to have Maldini as a teammate but no doubt he would have left John Terry on his backside were he still playing today. He was named European Footballer of the Year in 1969, the same year he helped Milan to his and the club's second European Cup. His trophy collection also includes three Scudettos, two European Cup Winners' Cups and four Italian Cups.
Frank Rijkaard
Holding midfielder
AC Milan 1988-1993; 201 appearances, 26 goals
A fourth defender is not really required with Frank Rijkaard shoring up this Milan's myriad midfield talents. The converted centre-half brought a defender's discipline to the role of holding midfielder; while Milan's attacking architects were busy creating Baroque masterpieces in Bernini's image, Rijkaard mixed cement, carried hods, plastered walls and fixed the plumbing.
His explosive temperament meant he took personally all opposition attempts to maim his more elusive teammates and exacted revenge by means frequently fair, but occasionally foul. In his five seasons with the club he won the Scudetto and European Cup on back-to-back occasions, but he earns his place in the side because of the freedom his endeavours would no doubt grant Rivera and Kaka.
Niels Liedholm
Centre midfielder
AC Milan 1949-1961, 394 appearances, 89 goals
Before the Dutch trio of Van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard made such an impression on the San Siro's record books, another foreign gang of three, all Swedish not Dutch, had combined to create the first truly great Milan side. The club's array of striking talent down the ages means there is no place in the starting XI for the technician Gunnar Gren. He was the 'Gre' in the legendary 'Gre-No-Li' and the 'Li' was midfielder Niels Liedholm. There is an apocryphal tale that says it took two years for Liedholm to misplace a pass at the San Siro and when it was confirmed to the crowd that he was indeed fallible, the stadium revealed its relief in a five-minute standing ovation.
His longevity in the game was based on dedication to a punishing fitness regime and a nutritionist's obsession with diet. His attitude advanced Italian club football way ahead of rival continental leagues and his influence continues to be felt today. David Beckham is just the latest in a long line of Milan descendants to have applied Liedholm's body-as-temple template in order to extract every last ounce of talent for the Rossoneri's cause. But if Beckham had only half Liedholm's ability, it may well be him challenging for a dream team place and not agitating for a move from LA Galaxy.
Kaka
Free role
AC Milan 2003-present; 234 appearances, 79 goals
There's no God, only Kaka. The Brazilian genius possesses a devotion to the Divine that would shake even the resolve of Richard Dawkins. Even the eminent evolutionary biologist would have to admit that Jesus may well be Kaka's bootboy. His skills make him the 21st century footballing reincarnation of Gianna Rivera but his extra pace and height see him pushed further up the field to support the front two. If match balls were females of the species, their groans of pleasure elicited by Kaka's touches and caresses would drown out even the adulatory noise of the San Siro's Brigate Rossonere such is his instinct and delicacy.
The newly crowned European champions signed him from Sao Paolo in 2003 for £5m, the same price paid by Blackburn Rovers nine years earlier to prise Chris Sutton away from Norwich. His pivotal role as audacious provider and scorer of the goals that guided an ageing Milan side to two European Cup finals and a 2004 Scudetto have added the necessary rows of zeros to his current valuation. Although, as Manchester City have discovered, not even all the zeros in the world can afford studs tightened by the son of God.
Gunnar Nordahl
Forward
AC Milan 1949-56, 268 appearances, 221 goals
The 'No' in 'Gre-No-Li' was the only negative aspect of a player whose every waking thought revolved around scoring goals. Nordahl was already 27 when he joined Milan in 1949; seven years later he would retire as Milan's all-time leading scorer and he still remains the second-highest Serie A goalscorer ever. If they had ever made a film of his life, only Marlon Brando could be cast as the great Swede and if they tried to cast him today, no current actor could get close to conveying his physicality, power or ferocious single-mindedness.
Nordahl had the intensity of a Stanley Kowalski and the drive of a Terry Molloy but when it came to finishing he had a class all of his own. If William Ralph 'Dixie' Dean epitomised the ideal 1930s centre-forward, Nordahl was a mirror image but with 20 years refinement. Italy wouldn't see such startling power again until Milan went African via Paris to sign George Weah in 1995.
Marco Van Basten
Forward
AC Milan 1987-1995, 201 appearances, 124 goals
Quite simply one of the best footballers there ever will be. If Gunnar Nordahl was a refinement of 'Dixie' Dean, Marco van Basten is refinement of every striker that followed in Dean and Nordal's stud-marks. A dominion over time is a key feature of all the greatest sportsmen; when van Basten controlled a Gullit pass and turned into the box, if he commanded time to slow and slow down it would. There isn't a single type of goal missing from his back catalogue, which would be even more extensive were it not for a persistent ankle injury that meant he barely played after his 28th birthday.
His final act in the red and black was collecting a runners-up medal after losing 1-0 to Marseilles in the now-scarred 1993 European Cup final. By that time he already had three Serie A and two European Cup winners' medals to his name and had been crowned European Footballer of the Year three times - a feat matched only by Michel Platini and Johan Cryuff.
Fabio Cudicini
Goalkeeper
AC Milan 1967-72; 183 appearances
The father of White Hart Lane's Carlo, his shadow has chased his son throughout the younger Cudicini's unfulfilled career. Father Fabio, whose presence and acrobatic qualities earned him the sobriquet, 'Ragno Nero' or Black Spider. The nickname pinpoints his place in the highest echelons of keepers in that it honours an ability that brought frequent comparisons to his contemporary Lev Yashin, the impermeable 'Black Octopus'.
Longer of leg, bigger of body and with the reflexes to leave a stain on the mind of any striker, Yashin elevated goalkeeping to an art form. Cudicini was a willing disciple and that his dexterity permits him to have his name uttered in the same sentence as Yashin sees him take the No.1 jersey ahead of Lorenzo Buffon, and the man who never had to make a save, Sebastiano Rossi.
Paolo Maldini
Defender
AC Milan 1985-present; 891 appearances, 33 goals
What Shane Warne did for the art of legspin, Paolo Maldini did for the art of defending. It has been rumoured that he sweats black and red, such is his devotion to Milan, but this remains unconfirmed as his soothsayer vision waives any need to perspire. By the time Maldini's current team-mate, Pato, was born in September 1989, Il Capitano had already made 150 appearances for the Rossoneri and was an established member of the Italian national side.
He won his first Scudetto in 1988, what looks like his last in 2004, and in between picked up another five to go with the European Cups that he can count on one hand (just); but the trophies are mere decoration to an outstanding talent. Like Cruyff and his turn, Maldini has trademarked his own touch of skill: a sliding tackle of exact timing and execution, the purpose being repossession not demolition. Leading with the left leg, his foot wraps around the ball and, instead of a clearance, he traps the ball between left foot and right knee, rising in one motion with the ball at his feet and an attacker searching for a throw in that never comes - the Maldini.
Franco Baresi
Defender
AC Milan 1977-97; Appearances: 719; Goals: 33
It is tempting to consider that Baresi's young apprentice, Paolo Maldini, made a Faustian pact of the kind that preserved Dorian Grey's beauty. To continue with the analogy would see Baresi as Basil Hallward's portrait, ravaged by the experiences of his eternally youthful alter ego. When he made his Milan debut as a seventeen-year-old, Baresi already resembled the gnarled warrior he would become 719 first team appearances later; to confirm this impression, he played as if he had all the wisdom of one who has lived many lives.
His six Scudettos match the number that adorned his shirt and has now been retired by the club, an act due to be repeated with Maldini's No.3 at the end of the season. He also captained the side to the European Cup in 1989 and 1990 but suspension meant he missed out on the 4-0 victory over Barcelona in the 1994 final. A player for the ages, whose role in Maldini's development could only have been achieved at a club for whom lineage and history is of paramount importance. Unlike Oscar Wilde's creation, Baresi's footballing aesthetic was not that of the extravagant hedonist, his beauty lay in consistency, reliability and leadership.
Alessandro Costacurta
Defender
AC Milan 1986-2007; 662 appearances, 3 goals
Alessandro Costacurta is the third and final member of the dream team's defensive trio; a back-line that could be more closely described as a collection of oracles such is their prophetic reading of the game. The three played together for ten years and turned Sebastiano Rossi into a mere spectator on the pitch. Costacurta's seven Scudettos spanned a 16-year period and were topped up by collecting the same five European Cup winners' medals as Paolo Maldini.
Not particularly tall for a centre-half, his speed over short distances and immaculate perception cut out the need to compete for headers. He often gave the impression he was involved in a conspiracy with the ball, of which the opposing attacker remained uninitiated. It is only the presence of such a superior midfield and strike-force that removes the need to include the fourth of that great back-line, Mauro Tassotti, who can consider his omission desperately unlucky.
Ruud Gullit
Free role
AC Milan 1987-1993 and 1994, 171 appearances, 56 goals
Before the time billionaires existed, when the Premier League was European football's poor relation, financially and technically, English football fans were restricted to admiring only the fading skills of the great players of the age. Already in his mid-thirties when he arrived at Chelsea, Gullit's days as the driving force behind Milan's great midfield of the '80s and '90s now belonged to the highlight reels and now youtube. Nevertheless, he dazzled briefly and, Cantona aside, there was no better player in the league in 1995-96.
He played high-up the pitch in a front-three; as a sweeper; a holding midfielder; a free-scoring midfielder; but, for this dream team, he can play anywhere he damn well wants. He was European Footballer of the Year in 1987, an award the enlightened Gullit dedicated to Nelson Mandela, long before he had become Morgan Freeman. Whether it was down to his raging lion's mane or not, there have been very few footballers, before or since, who were blessed with the heading ability that converted his skull into a weapon as lethal as either of his feet. That he should be remembered in this country for uttering the phrase "sexy football" at once captures his footballing style and, at the same time, reveals our ignorance of his brilliance.
Gianni Rivera
Centre midfielder
AC Milan 1960-79; 658 appearances, 164 goals
Gianni Rivera's talent makes a mockery of any claims to the technical advancement of the game over the last 15 years. Faster, yes; fitter, yes; better diets, yes; richer, yes; more skilful, not a chance. The other attributes are negated by relativity, skill is innate and then it is down to the individual to eke out every last drop, whatever the era or competition. Rivera glided past Mario Coluna in the sixties, Norman Hunter in the seventies and, had Italian football's golden boy continued playing, he would have done the same to Passarella in the eighties.
In the nineties he'd have been lucky enough to have Maldini as a teammate but no doubt he would have left John Terry on his backside were he still playing today. He was named European Footballer of the Year in 1969, the same year he helped Milan to his and the club's second European Cup. His trophy collection also includes three Scudettos, two European Cup Winners' Cups and four Italian Cups.
Frank Rijkaard
Holding midfielder
AC Milan 1988-1993; 201 appearances, 26 goals
A fourth defender is not really required with Frank Rijkaard shoring up this Milan's myriad midfield talents. The converted centre-half brought a defender's discipline to the role of holding midfielder; while Milan's attacking architects were busy creating Baroque masterpieces in Bernini's image, Rijkaard mixed cement, carried hods, plastered walls and fixed the plumbing.
His explosive temperament meant he took personally all opposition attempts to maim his more elusive teammates and exacted revenge by means frequently fair, but occasionally foul. In his five seasons with the club he won the Scudetto and European Cup on back-to-back occasions, but he earns his place in the side because of the freedom his endeavours would no doubt grant Rivera and Kaka.
Niels Liedholm
Centre midfielder
AC Milan 1949-1961, 394 appearances, 89 goals
Before the Dutch trio of Van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard made such an impression on the San Siro's record books, another foreign gang of three, all Swedish not Dutch, had combined to create the first truly great Milan side. The club's array of striking talent down the ages means there is no place in the starting XI for the technician Gunnar Gren. He was the 'Gre' in the legendary 'Gre-No-Li' and the 'Li' was midfielder Niels Liedholm. There is an apocryphal tale that says it took two years for Liedholm to misplace a pass at the San Siro and when it was confirmed to the crowd that he was indeed fallible, the stadium revealed its relief in a five-minute standing ovation.
His longevity in the game was based on dedication to a punishing fitness regime and a nutritionist's obsession with diet. His attitude advanced Italian club football way ahead of rival continental leagues and his influence continues to be felt today. David Beckham is just the latest in a long line of Milan descendants to have applied Liedholm's body-as-temple template in order to extract every last ounce of talent for the Rossoneri's cause. But if Beckham had only half Liedholm's ability, it may well be him challenging for a dream team place and not agitating for a move from LA Galaxy.
Kaka
Free role
AC Milan 2003-present; 234 appearances, 79 goals
There's no God, only Kaka. The Brazilian genius possesses a devotion to the Divine that would shake even the resolve of Richard Dawkins. Even the eminent evolutionary biologist would have to admit that Jesus may well be Kaka's bootboy. His skills make him the 21st century footballing reincarnation of Gianna Rivera but his extra pace and height see him pushed further up the field to support the front two. If match balls were females of the species, their groans of pleasure elicited by Kaka's touches and caresses would drown out even the adulatory noise of the San Siro's Brigate Rossonere such is his instinct and delicacy.
The newly crowned European champions signed him from Sao Paolo in 2003 for £5m, the same price paid by Blackburn Rovers nine years earlier to prise Chris Sutton away from Norwich. His pivotal role as audacious provider and scorer of the goals that guided an ageing Milan side to two European Cup finals and a 2004 Scudetto have added the necessary rows of zeros to his current valuation. Although, as Manchester City have discovered, not even all the zeros in the world can afford studs tightened by the son of God.
Gunnar Nordahl
Forward
AC Milan 1949-56, 268 appearances, 221 goals
The 'No' in 'Gre-No-Li' was the only negative aspect of a player whose every waking thought revolved around scoring goals. Nordahl was already 27 when he joined Milan in 1949; seven years later he would retire as Milan's all-time leading scorer and he still remains the second-highest Serie A goalscorer ever. If they had ever made a film of his life, only Marlon Brando could be cast as the great Swede and if they tried to cast him today, no current actor could get close to conveying his physicality, power or ferocious single-mindedness.
Nordahl had the intensity of a Stanley Kowalski and the drive of a Terry Molloy but when it came to finishing he had a class all of his own. If William Ralph 'Dixie' Dean epitomised the ideal 1930s centre-forward, Nordahl was a mirror image but with 20 years refinement. Italy wouldn't see such startling power again until Milan went African via Paris to sign George Weah in 1995.
Marco Van Basten
Forward
AC Milan 1987-1995, 201 appearances, 124 goals
Quite simply one of the best footballers there ever will be. If Gunnar Nordahl was a refinement of 'Dixie' Dean, Marco van Basten is refinement of every striker that followed in Dean and Nordal's stud-marks. A dominion over time is a key feature of all the greatest sportsmen; when van Basten controlled a Gullit pass and turned into the box, if he commanded time to slow and slow down it would. There isn't a single type of goal missing from his back catalogue, which would be even more extensive were it not for a persistent ankle injury that meant he barely played after his 28th birthday.
His final act in the red and black was collecting a runners-up medal after losing 1-0 to Marseilles in the now-scarred 1993 European Cup final. By that time he already had three Serie A and two European Cup winners' medals to his name and had been crowned European Footballer of the Year three times - a feat matched only by Michel Platini and Johan Cryuff.
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