CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Why are Inter players wearing black armbands against Atlético Madrid in the Champions League?
The Serie A giants remember Andreas Brehme, who played for the club for four years, winning one league title and a UEFA Cup.
Inter Milan get their 2023-24 Champions League knockout campaign underway in the round of 16 against Atlético Madrid on Tuesday, the same day it was announced former player Andreas Brehme had died of a heart attack at the age of 63.
Brehme’s World Cup winner for West Germany
The German was perhaps best known for scoring the only goal in the 1990 World Cup final in Rome as West Germany defeated Diego Maradona’s Argentina. Brehme kept his nerve after the European side were awarded an 85th-minute penalty, stroking the ball into the bottom corner with his right foot. The full-back was famously two-footed and previously netted from the spot with his left foot in a penalty shootout against Mexico in the 1986 World Cup quarter-finals.
Brehme spent most of his club career in his homeland, playing over 300 games in two spells for Kaiserslautern, with whom he surprisingly won a Bundesliga title in 1998 in the last season before he retired. He also won the league with Bayern Munich, who he played for for two years from 1986 to 1988 before deciding to try his luck abroad.
Domestic and European glory with Inter
After the 1988 European Championship, the defender signed for Inter, where he linked up with compatriots Lothar Matthäus and Jürgen Klinsmann. In four seasons in Milan, Brehme played 155 times and scored 12 goals, helping the Nerazzuri win Serie A in 1988-89, which they had to wait another 17 years to get their hands on.
The German also lifted the 1990-91 UEFA Cup, as well as the Supercoppa Italiana in 1989.
To mark Brehme’s passing, Inter have decided to add a horizontal flash of black to their vertical black and blue stripes (but most noticeable on goalkeeper Yann Sommer), with each player wearing an armband in tribute against Atlético, joined by the match officials. Brehme played for both the Italians and Bayern in the European Cup, losing in the final to Porto with the latter in 1987, although he retired the summer before Kaiserslautern made their first foray into the Champions League, introduced in 1992.