Serie A: Reliving Juventus' 8 successive title wins
Italian football's top-flight football competition, the Serie A, had its inaugural edition in 1891. Played in its present-day (single round) format since 1929, Serie A has been a 20-team league since the 2004 season.
It is one of the top three football leagues in Europe. It is ranked behind Spain's LaLiga and England's Premier League by UEFA's league co-efficient, and ahead of Germany's Bundesliga and France's Ligue 1.
Serie A is the only top-5 European football league to employ a true round-robin system - where teams play each other exactly once during the first half of the season called 'andata', and in the same order - but with home and away teams reversed - during the second half of the season called 'ritorno'.
A total of 66 different clubs have played the Serie A in its present format (since 1929). Among the 12 clubs to have won Serie A, Juventus are the record 35-time champions, and have won the last eight titles. That is the record for the most number of consecutive titles in the Italian top flight.
Serial winners Juventus have garnered a slew of league records. They have the most goals (5037), most wins (1555), most consecutive wins (17), most consecutive home wins (33), most wins in a season (33), most home wins in a season (19), most points in a season (102) and longest unbeaten streak in a 20-league season (38 in 2011-12).
Juventus' legendary keeper Gianluigi Buffon holds the record for most clean sheets in Serie A (292) and most clean sheets in a season (21 in 2011-12 and 2015-16). Buffon is the only player to win 9 Serie A titles (all for Juventus).
As the 2019-20 Serie A season gets underway this weekend, let us have a look at Juventus' eight successive title triumphs:
#1 First Title (2011-12)
Juventus ended the six-year Serie A reign of Milan clubs in 2011-12, by winning their first Serie A title in nine years and their 28th overall.
Despite producing the first unbeaten Serie A season in a 20-team league, Juventus managed to finish only four points clear of second placed AC Milan and garnered less wins (23) than the defending champions (24).
However, the Bianconeri keeper Gianluigi Buffon set a new Serie A record of most clean sheets (21) during the season. Juventus shut out opposition teams as many number of times during the season.
#2 Second Title (2012-13)
For the first time in 10 years Juventus had a successful title defence as they won their 29th Serie A title - beating SSC Napoli by nine points.
Except for the first match day, the Bianconeri were top of the league on all other match days during the season.
Gianluigi Buffon kept 16 (of Juventus' 19) clean sheets during the season, which was more than what the second placed club, Napoli, managed (14) during the same period.