Starting tomorrow, match against Real Madrid (all 20:30, click here to purchase tickets), and for three months, Olimpia will play its home matches in the historic arena in Piazza Stuparich, previously known as Palalido and now Allianz Cloud. The debut against Real Madrid is significant because against the same opponent in 1966 the then Simmenthal played one of the most important matches in its history, the comeback in the quarter-finals of the European Cup which qualified Olimpia for the Final Four in Bologna by eliminating the opponent considered to be the strongest.
The Palalido was occupied by basketball for the first time on 8 December 1960 in a match at the top of the Italian championship between Simmenthal Milano and Ignis Varese. From that moment, Olimpia played at the Palalido until the 1978/79 season when, after construction two years earlier, it began to play its matches at the Palazzone di San Siro, but kept its training venue at the Lido. In addition to remaining a backup solution in cases of unavailability of the main facility, the Palalido hosted Olimpia in the 1985/86 season, in the period between the demolition of the Palazzo di San Siro – following the snowfall that damaged the roof in January 1985 – and the construction of the Lampugnano arena.
In 1986 Olimpia won the last of the seven championships won with Palalido as their home field. In 1991, the Assago Forum became, barring exceptions or unavailability, Olimpia’s home pitch. In 2008, when Giorgio Armani took over Olimpia, the club – while continuing to play its home matches at the Forum – used the Palalido area as its headquarters for training up to and including the 2015/16 season, before the definitive move to the Unipol Forum. The bond between the club and the arena in the Piazzale Lotto area has evidently always been very strong.
The first scudetto won at the Palalido by Olimpia dates back to the 1961/62 season: it was the first of two. Then he won three consecutive ones between 1965 and 1967 as well as the 1966 European Cup; the sixth was the one won in 1972; the seventh was in 1986, the only one without Cesare Rubini on the bench: the coach was Dan Peterson. Olimpia played two matches in the 2019/20 season in the renovated Piazza Stuparich facility, after its reconstruction, against Trieste and Treviso, as well as an amarcord derby with Urania.
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