Inter are guaranteed to win the Serie A title if history is anything to go by, according to a report in the Italian media today.
Gazzetta dello Sport’s print edition revealed no team in Italy’s top flight had ever lost the Scudetto after holding an 11-point lead with nine games left.
What’s more, since Serie A returned to being a 20-team league in 2004, only one team has lost the title after being top at the end of matchday 29 (as Inter are now).
Antonio Conte is ironically the man responsible for that exception, after his Juventus side recovered a four-point gap to AC Milan en route to the title during the 2011-12 season.
Serie A’s two most incredible comeback titles took place in the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons, the report recalled, and Conte was involved in one of those as well.
Juventus were nine points clear of eventual champions Lazio with eight games left in 2000, before Sven Goran Eriksson’s side turned the tables at the end of the campaign.
During the previous season, it was Lazio who fell apart on the home stretch as they threw away a seven-point lead to AC Milan in the final seven games.
Inter will be hoping they suffer no such collapse after recording their tenth straight league win last night.