Match summary
In Tokyo 20 years later, Milan triumphed once again courtesy of Alberigo Evani, their resident free kick specialist. For 118 minutes, the two teams were deadlocked, taking a minimum of risks and sticking to their opponents like shadows in midfield and up front.

But with a penalty shootout looming, Nacional Medellin defender Herrera went in excessively hard on Marco van Basten as the Dutch ace was about to break into the penalty area. Despite a wall made up of no less than seven defenders, René Higuita was powerless to keep out Evani's wonder strike.

The following year, Milan became the first team to contest two consecutive Toyota Cups. Although deprived of Ruud Gullit, their injured midfield maverick who had remained in Italy, the Milanese side prevailed once again against the dogged Paraguayans Olimpia. The South American champions held out for 43 minutes before buckling under the repeated assaults led by Frank Rijkaard, the scorer of a brace, and Giovanni Stroppa.

Key players
While the red-and-black stripes of AC Milan have been graced by dozens of global megastars, Franco Baresi will forever remain the Milanese outfit's greatest icon. In his honour, the Lombardian club announced in July 1997 that Baresi's Number 6 shirt would no longer be allocated.

Throughout his entire career, this exemplary defender wore no other shirt than Milan's. "Why would I have dreamed for a single moment in my career of leaving Milan for another club? I was already playing for the best team in the world," he once explained with a smile.

The "little kid" ( piscinin), as he was initially dubbed by his team-mates, played his first Serie A match on 23 April 1978 against Verona and eventually hung up his boots in June 1997. Listing Baresi's honours in the game requires a deep breath: six Italian titles, five Champions League finals, three of them victorious, two Toyota Cups, three World Cups (one triumph in 1982), and a record 713 first-team appearances for Milan. Since retiring as a player, he has held the position of vice-chairman responsible for Milan's youth teams.

Coach
When he arrived at Milan at the age of 41, Arrigo Sacchi had won nothing in the game. At first, he had trouble getting his message across and Berlusconi, won over by his coach's sincerity, took the players to one side individually before a vital game against Verona, telling them: "If I have to choose between Sacchi and the team, I'll choose Sacchi." The message could scarcely have been clearer...

Sacchi's revolution amounted to the innovative deployment of a sort of "pressing zone" more commonly associated with basketball, implemented by a traditional 4-4-2 formation. He liked to pressurise opponents in their own half of the pitch, positioning his defence right up on the halfway line.

Up front, he played a single striker, supported by several versatile performers such as Roberto Donadoni, Alberigo Evani, Ruud Gullit, and also Carlo Ancellotti, the current Milan coach.

At the back, the imperious Baresi marshalled the defence and coordinated the offside trap, but the most impressive aspect of the Sacchi method was the sense created of a single cohesive unit, with all the players moving towards the ball as one. In Sacchi's Milan side, the players not only moved back and forward in unison, but they remained equidistant from one another, more or less to the metre. It proved to be a system of formidable efficiency, which many endeavoured to copy.

Toyota Cup 1989
17 December 1989 at Tokyo's National Stadium
AC Milan beat Nacional Medellin 1-0 a.e.t.
Attendance: 62,000 spectators
Referee: Erik Fredriksson (SWE)
Goal: Evani (118')
Milan:Galli, Tassotti, Baresi, Costacurta, Maldini, Rijkaard, Ancelotti, Donadoni, Fuser (Evani 65'), Van Basten, Massaro.
Coach: Arrigo Sacchi
Nacional: Higuita, Gomez, Escobar, Herrera, Cassiani, Alvarez, Garcia, Arango, R. Perez, Trellez, Arboleda.
Man of the match: Evani
Toyota Cup 1990
9 December 1990 at Tokyo's National Stadium
AC Milan beat Club Olimpia 3-0
Attendance: 60,000 spectators
Referee: José Ramiz Wright (Bra)
Goals: Rijkaard (43' and 65'), Stroppa (61')
Milan: Pazzagli, Tassotti, Baresi, Costacurta, Maldini, Rijkaard, Donadoni, Stroppa, Carbone, Van Basten, Gullit.
Coach: Arrigo Sacchi
Olimpia: Almeida, Suarez, Fernandez, Caceres, M. Ramirez, Monzon, Balbuena, Jara Heyn, Guasch, Samaniego, Amarilla.
Man of the match: Rijkaard