Wembley, Moscow, then the sales: the trophies Parma won and the team they sold

Parma's first trophy came from Juventus. In the 1992 Coppa Italia final they lost the first leg 1–0 at the Stadio delle Alpi on 7 May, and a week later, at the Tardini, they won 2–0. Two years after reaching Serie A for the first time, Nevio Scala's side had a cup.

It was the first of eight trophies in the Tanzi years, and four of them were European.

Wembley

The Cup Winners' Cup run started against Újpest and went through Boavista and Sparta Prague to a semi-final with Atlético Madrid. In Madrid, Faustino Asprilla scored twice in a 2–1 win. Parma lost the home leg 1–0, and went through on away goals.

The final was at Wembley on 12 May 1993, against Antwerp. Lorenzo Minotti, the captain, scored after ten minutes, and Francis Severeyns equalised for the Belgians two minutes later. Alessandro Melli put Parma back in front, and six minutes from the end Stefano Cuoghi made it 3–1.

It was Parma's second season in European competition, three years after their promotion, and they were the eighth different Italian club to win a European trophy. "They were people that fully understood what we were doing," Minotti said of the supporters, "because a few years before, we were playing in front of three or four thousand people. But half of Parma was at Wembley for that final!"

Milan and Arsenal

The Cup Winners' Cup put Parma into the European Super Cup. Their opponents should have been Marseille, the European champions, but Marseille were banned from European football over bribery, and Milan, the team they had beaten in the final, played instead.

The first leg, at the Tardini on 12 January 1994, went to Milan, through a Jean-Pierre Papin goal two minutes before half-time. The second was at San Siro on 2 February. Néstor Sensini scored after 23 minutes to level the tie, and in the fifth minute of extra time Massimo Crippa won it. Parma, with Gianfranco Zola, Tomas Brolin and Asprilla in the team, had beaten Milan 2–0 on their own ground.

Later that season they reached the Cup Winners' Cup final again, and lost it 1–0 to Arsenal in Copenhagen.

Juventus again

In 1995 Parma reached a third European final in a row, and this time they met Juventus. The first leg of the UEFA Cup final was at the Tardini on 3 May, and Dino Baggio scored after five minutes. The second leg was played at San Siro on 17 May. Gianluca Vialli equalised on aggregate on 33 minutes, and nine minutes into the second half Baggio scored again. It finished 1–1, and Parma won 2–1 on aggregate.

It was the only prize Marcello Lippi's Juventus let them have that season. Juventus won the league and beat Parma in the Coppa Italia final as well.

1999

Four years later, under Alberto Malesani, Parma had their best season.

They reached the Coppa Italia final against Fiorentina. The first leg, at the Tardini on 14 April 1999, was 1–1, and the second, in Florence on 5 May, was 2–2. Parma won on away goals, against Batistuta's Fiorentina.

In the UEFA Cup they had put out Fenerbahçe, Wisła Kraków and Rangers. They lost the away leg of the quarter-final at Bordeaux and then beat them 6–0 at the Tardini. In the semi-final they beat Atlético Madrid 5–2 on aggregate.

The final was at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on 12 May 1999, six years to the day after Wembley. Marseille were without several players through suspension, among them Fabrizio Ravanelli and Christophe Dugarry, who was banned after a brawl in the players' tunnel at the end of their semi-final against Bologna.

Hernán Crespo scored after 26 minutes and Paolo Vanoli ten minutes later. Ten minutes into the second half Enrico Chiesa volleyed in the third at the end of a move that went through Juan Sebastián Verón and Crespo. Parma won 3–0.

"It was a fantastic goal, one you'd never stop watching," Malesani said. "I'm proud of it, because it was the essence of football." He also said: "That team could have won everything: they needed to maintain the core and bring in at least a couple more champions who could ensure a leap in quality."

In August they beat Milan 2–1 at San Siro in the Supercoppa Italiana, the only time Parma have won it.

Selling

The team was not kept together. Verón went to Lazio that summer, straight after Moscow, and Sensini went with him. Chiesa was sold to Fiorentina and Asprilla to Palmeiras. Parma turned down offers for Crespo, Lilian Thuram and Gianluigi Buffon, and bought Márcio Amoroso, the previous season's top scorer in Serie A, from Udinese.

That season ended with a play-off against Inter for a place in the Champions League, which Parma lost 3–1 on 23 May 2000.

In July 2000 Crespo went to Lazio too, for a world-record fee. Matías Almeyda and Sérgio Conceição went the other way as part of the deal. Nobody had told Conceição. "I deserved greater respect for what I have given to this club," he said. "I still know nothing about it, no-one has told me I could be sold." Crespo's record stood for less than a fortnight, until Real Madrid bought Luís Figo. Dino Baggio also went to Lazio that summer, and Mario Stanić to Chelsea.

Malesani was sacked on 8 January 2001. Arrigo Sacchi, the club's coach in the 1980s, came back and left within weeks, citing stress. Renzo Ulivieri finished the season. Parma came fourth and reached the Coppa Italia final, and lost it to Fiorentina.

On 3 July 2001 Buffon joined Juventus for 100 billion lire, a world-record fee for a goalkeeper. Thuram went with him for 80 billion. Juventus, that same summer, sold Zinedine Zidane to Real Madrid. Amoroso went to Borussia Dortmund.

Goal's history of the club puts the sales down to an attempt "to alleviate the strain on the club's accounts". Luca Baraldi, who became a director in 2001, described his first day at the club to Sky. He sat in a meeting with Tanzi and the vice-president, Fulvio Ceresini, in which Tanzi gave the go-ahead to try to sign Francesco Toldo and Rui Costa from Fiorentina for the following summer. "Having seen the accounts myself at that stage," Baraldi said, "I just thought to myself, 'But with what money?!'"

One more cup

There was one more trophy. In the 2002 Coppa Italia final Parma lost 2–1 to Juventus in Turin on 25 April and won 1–0 at the Tardini on 10 May, and took the cup on away goals. It was their third Coppa Italia and their third Coppa Italia final against Juventus.

That summer Fabio Cannavaro was sold to Inter.