Almost all the domestic European football leagues have been dominated by top two or three teams for decades as far as clinching the most coveted national top flight football league is concerned. In the last three decades, English football has been dominated by the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea. In Germany, it has been an absolute monopoly of Bayern Munich and in Spain the title race has a history of being evenly poised between arch rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid. Likewise in Italy also, Juventus and the two outfits of Milan — AC Milan and Inter Milan — have been busy to snatch the Scudetto.
To be more precise, if one considers the Serie A performance of the preceding one and half decade, it was almost an absolute domination of Juventus. The Turin based side own the Serie A title for consecutive nine times between 2011 and 2020. However, since then the performance graph of Juventus is sloping downward and Inter Milan, the second most successful club of the country is emerging as a powerful and consistent threat to other title challengers.
In the 2020-21 season, Inter Milan secured the league title with 91 points, 12 more than second placed AC Milan under the guidance of head coach Antonio Conte. It was the Nerazzurri’s first silverware since the incredible treble winning 2009-10 season under Jose Mourinho.
Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku was the top scorer for the club in all competitions with 30 goals. Despite domestic success, their Champions League performance was below par as they were eliminated from the group stage.
Before the start of the 2021-22 season, Antonio Conte stepped down from his job and fellow Italian, Simone Inzaghi, who used to be the manager of S S Lazio, was employed to fill the vacancy. In a nutshell, Inzaghi simply carried forward the same spirit and intensity of performance where Conte left as they finished with 84 points only 2 adrift of eventual winners AC Milan.
Apart from that, they won the Coppa Italia trophy defeating Juventus 4-2 in the final. Inter Milan also reached the knockout stages of the Champions League only to be eliminated by Liverpool, the runners up of that year’s Champions League campaign.
In the following 2022-23 season, Inter’s performance in the league was lackluster as they finished third with 72 points, 18 fewer to first placed Napoli. Nevertheless, they successfully defended their Coppa Italia crown at the expense of Fiorentina in the final.
The most significant story of the season for them was reaching the final of Champions League. After some solid performances, both offensively and defensively, they reached the final of Europe’s most prestigious elite level club football competition to face English champions Manchester City.
Though, in Istanbul, Inter Milan couldn’t repeat the success story of 2010 and finished second best against a side who were at their peak. Argentine striker and club captain Lautaro Martinez was their top scorer of the campaign with 28 goals.
The ongoing Serie A season is going quite well for Inter Milan as they are comfortably sitting on the poll position with 75 points, 16 ahead of second placed AC Milan with 10 rounds of matches still to be played. As they have already been eliminated from other cup competitions, their focus solely would be to wrap up their 20th Serie A title in some style, continuing their sublime performance for the rest of the season.
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6 comments
Beautifully summarized.
Hoping to see the lost glories of Italian football, reigning the european circuit again.
Back in 2007-10 I used to watch Serie A a lot, it was really hard to leave out any game. Nowadays I think the quality of Italian Football has been dropped a little bit.However the dominance of Juventus isn’t there much anymore. I hope Italian’s football supremacy will be there again.
Abhirup has written the article wonderfully, thanks to him for so much information.
Out of the numerous fascinating features always intertwined within your work, what I like the most is how flawlessly a narrative is presented through your words. Although I am not an avid football fan, I enjoy watching sports to a great extent, and with your lucid presentation of updates, strategies and other aspects of this sport altogether, learning becomes fun too. Wonderful as always!! Please keep it up.
Good work. Keep it up
Great to know about Inter Milan’s resurgence under Simone Inzaghi! Very nicely written again by Abhirup!! Keep it up!!!
Keep going like this. Flawless narrative!