One year later, Nereo Rocco was hired as manager of the club, bringing to Milan his experience on the Catenaccio approach, which he integrated with a good attacking phase, thanks also to new signings such as Dino Sani, José Altafini and Amarildo.

Thanks to a brace of José Altafini, the top-scorer of the tournament with 14 goals, Milan won the game 2–1 and lifted their first European Cup, first Italian club to achieve this result.

The final was remembered for suspected corruption attempts by Santos officials towards the referee of the return leg, Juan Brozzi, who handled the game in evident favour of the Brazilians, not punishing their excessive aggressiveness on the pitch, thus allowing them to overcome the 2–0 lead Milan had at the end of the half time.

The rest of the game was approached difensively by the club, and thanks to a remarkable performance of goalkeeper William Vecchi, Milan was able to retain the 1–0 lead until the end, securing the trophy.

The European cup participation in 1979–80, thanks to the victory of the tenth scudetto in the previous season, ended prematurely, in the first round, due to a 1–0 home defeat to Porto.

Milan had no troubles getting promoted to Serie A the following year, when they also won the Mitropa Cup, a trophy participated by the winners of European second division championships.

A mix of young players such as Roberto Donadoni and affirmed stars as Carlo Ancelotti, Marco Van Basten and Ruud Gullit were added to an already solid base formed by the likes of Paolo Maldini and Franco Baresi.

The mind behind this team was Arrigo Sacchi, a young and relatively inexperienced manager but with modern and courageous ideas that contrasted the defensive approach typical of Italian sides of the period.

[8][9] After some months of trial, where some players struggled to assimilate the highly intensive training techniques adopted by Sacchi, the team started to impose its fast-paced and high-pressing play to its opponents.

Contrary to the approach of Italian teams of the time, Sacchi's Milan went to Madrid with the intent of winning the game, and they nearly did so, with a dominating performance that granted them a 1–1 score.

Subsequently, Milan won the 1989 European Super Cup against Barcelona in a two-legged tie which saw the rossoneri drawing 1–1 in Spain and winning 1–0 at home.

The Colombians blocked successfully the Milan players and the game was resolved only at the 119th minute, in the extra time, with a free kick by Alberico Evani, which set the final score to 1–0 for the rossoneri.

After almost three years at high playing and training pace, the team suffered some fatigue in the 1990–91 season, when they could not repeat the European exploits of the previous spells.

In the Champions League, Milan reached the final for the third consecutive year (a record shared with Real Madrid and Juventus), but lost 1–0 to Ajax thanks to a late goal of Patrick Kluivert.

From the 1996–97 to 2000–01 seasons, Milan experienced a transition period, where many of the players that built the rossoneri's fortunes either left the club (Gullit, Donadoni and manager Fabio Capello) or retired (Baresi, Tassotti).

Young and affirmed players joined Milan, such as Andriy Shevchenko, Gennaro Gattuso, Manuel Rui Costa, Filippo Inzaghi, Nelson Dida and Andrea Pirlo.

In the first half of the 2001–02 season, after a series of unconvincing results, then coach Fatih Terim was sacked and replaced, after a small intermezzo of former Milan captain Cesare Maldini, by Carlo Ancelotti.

In the same season, the club reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup, and got eliminated by Borussia Dortmund after a 4–0 loss in Germany and a 3–1 win at San Siro.

Thanks to a great performance of goalkeeper Dida, who saved three penalties, and to Andriy Shevchenko, who scored the decisive one, Milan achieved their sixth Champions League title.

In the return leg, Milan was leading 1–0 thanks to a long-distance shot of the Ukrainian, when a disallowed Inter goal caused massive protests from the nerazzurri supporters, who started throwing flares on the pitch.

The 2005–06 Champions League started well once again for Milan, who qualified as first team in the group stage, and in the round of 16 eliminated Bayern Munich with a 5–2 aggregate score.

However, the path of the rossoneri terminated in the semi-finals against Barcelona, condemned by a 1–0 defeat at San Siro and despite a contested disallowed goal from Shevchenko in the return leg, ended 0–0.

In Milan, the game was resolved in the rossoneri's favor only in the extra time, thanks to a trademark progression run by Kakà, who started from the midfield line and ended up with the Scottish keeper beaten inside the box.

After a thrilling game at Old Trafford, ended 3-2 for the red devils, the return leg was perfectly played by Milan who went quickly into a double advantage and blocked any attempt of British club to be dangerous.

New signings of Robinho and Zlatan Ibrahimović, as well as Alexandre Pato and Ronaldinho, made Milan supporters hope for a new era of European successes, but that would not be the case.

This season saw the retirement and departure of many of the players on whom Milan built its successes, leaving behind a team that required a big strengthening to keep the same levels achieved in the previous decades.

However, such investments would not come, and the team struggled for many seasons in the Serie A, and in European field did not achieve any remarkable results, being eliminated in the round of 16 both in 2012–13 and in 2013–14, by Barcelona and Atlético Madrid respectively.

In 2017–18, under a new ownership, Milan put in place several new signings, but despite those, results kept being scarce, including an elimination in the Europa League round of 16 by Arsenal.

The high expenses of the previous transfer market sessions and the big debts it generated, caused Milan to violate the rules of Financial Fair Play, and they willingly accepted the punishment of UEFA to not admit the club in the 2019–20 Europa League season, allowing them to extinguish all further investigations and start from scratch, thanks also to a new change of ownership.

In fact, in 2021–22 Milan won its first scudetto in eleven years, and took part to the Champions League after seven seasons since the last time, even though they were eliminated in the group stage.