Gilardino, back to the future: from Parma to San Siro 20 years on
Saturday 10 October at 18:00 CEST at San Siro, Inter and Palma come face to face on matchday 6 of Serie A. This is a challenge that will inevitably hold special significance for Alberto Gilardino, as it takes him back to a stadium where he was once a key player and where he will now be returning as a manager.
For Gilardino, Parma is one of those places you always seem destined to return to. It was here, more than 20 years ago, that he began making his name with a steady stream of goals, and it is here that he has now returned to open a new chapter in his story, this time from the dugout. The fixture list has handed him an evocative first assignment: Inter at San Siro, an opponent and a stadium that take him straight back to the years when he first burst onto the scene in Gialloblù colours.
Parma, where everything changed
Gilardino joined Parma in the summer of 2002, aged 20, after spells with Piacenza and Verona. His first season was largely about settling in and finding his place, but the following season everything changed.
He scored 23 goals in Serie A in 2003/04, playing a decisive role in Parma’s fifth-place finish and establishing himself as one of the league’s leading strikers. What might have looked like a breakthrough season instead proved to be the start of a remarkable run of consistency: he scored another 23 Serie A goals in 2004/05.
Forty-six goals across two league seasons say more than any description ever could about what Parma meant for Gilardino’s career. It was in Gialloblù colours that he truly became the centre-forward who would go on to leave his mark on Italian football: a striker who lived inside the penalty area and celebrated his goals with the famous violin celebration, born during his Parma years.
Even the final chapter of his first spell at the club carried Gila’s signature. In June 2005, in the relegation play-off against Bologna, Parma went into the second leg at the Dall’Ara trailing 1-0 from the first match at the Tardini. Gilardino scored the goal that made it 2-0 and secured Parma’s Serie A survival. It was his final goal in Gialloblù before leaving for Milan, and a fitting way to say goodbye to the club where he had made his name.
Before his departure, though, that same season also brought two meetings with Inter that now hold special significance.
Two games, two goals against Inter
The first came at San Siro on 26 September 2004. Inter vs. Parma was an entertaining contest, and Gilardino needed just 17 minutes to make his mark, applying the finishing touch from a corner to put the visitors ahead. Martins equalised for the Nerazzurri, Marchionni restored Parma’s lead, before Martins struck again to make it 2-2.
A few months later, on 6 February 2005, history almost repeated itself at the Tardini. Parma and Inter once again played out a 2-2 draw, with Gilardino finding the net for the second time that season against the Nerazzurri. Simplicio gave the hosts the lead, Córdoba levelled, before Gila made it 2-1 and Vieri scored the final equaliser.
So, in his final season with Parma, Gilardino faced Inter twice, scored in both meetings and came away with two identical draws. More than 20 years later, he meets the Nerazzurri again in a completely different role, but once more with Parma by his side.
Chivu and Gilardino, paths intertwined
There is another recent chapter of Parma history on the opposite touchline, with Cristian Chivu now in charge of Inter. It adds another intriguing layer to the fixture.
Gilardino has returned to the club where he made his name as a player; Chivu, meanwhile, faces the club that gave him his first opportunity as a senior head coach. The Romanian took charge of Parma in February 2025 and, over 13 matches on the Gialloblù bench, guided the team to Serie A survival before making the move to Inter just a few months later.
That dugout now belongs to Gilardino. On one side is Chivu, who took his first steps as a Serie A head coach at Parma; on the other is Gilardino, who has chosen to return to the Gialloblù and pick up a story that was interrupted more than 20 years ago.
There is another intriguing link between the two sides. Last May, Chivu mathematically secured his first Scudetto as a coach against Parma, beating the Gialloblù 2-0 at San Siro. Five months later, he faces them again at the same stadium, only this time their bench is occupied by one of the players who helped write an important chapter in the club’s recent history.
From Parma to Milan, and back again
And San Siro provides one final layer of nostalgia to a fixture already rich in connection to the past.
The journey that had established Gilardino as one of the most sought-after strikers in Italy came to an end there in the summer of 2005. Gila left Emilia to join AC Milan, making the stadium where he had scored against Inter only a few months earlier his new home.
He spent three seasons with the Rossoneri, making 132 appearances and scoring 44 goals in all competitions, and was part of the side that won the 2006/07 Champions League, the European Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup in 2007. One of the defining moments of his AC Milan spell came on the road to that Champions League triumph, when he scored the third goal in the 3-0 second-leg semi-final win over Manchester United at San Siro, sealing AC Milan’s place in the final in Athens.
It was the natural next step in a journey that had begun at Parma, the club that had allowed him to establish himself at the highest level and earn a move to one of European football’s giants.
That is why his return to San Siro with the Gialloblù feels like his story is coming full circle. More than 20 years later, he is back at a place that became central to his rise, only now he sees it all from a completely different perspective.
Parma once took him all the way to San Siro. Today, Parma have brought him back there – this time from the dugout.