Serie A's goalless drought equals 30-year record as history's longest waits revealed

Goalkeepers across Italy may be applauding, but the spreadsheet-watchers are getting restless. “There still hasn't been a 0-0 draw in Serie A this season, after four [sic] five rounds of matches,” wrote Stephen Hogg. “Is this getting near a record yet?”

Chris Roe, as he so often kindly does, chimes in with the answer. “I only have just over 30 years' worth of Italian league data so, within that small sample, this is equal to the longest wait for a goalless draw (between Napoli and Carpi), which came in the fifth round of matches in Serie A in the 2015-16 season.”

In other words, this season's run is not merely approaching the record – it has matched the longest wait of the modern era to date, exactly replicating that 2015-16 campaign in which Serie A's first 0-0 arrived only in round five.

How long have England's top flights ever waited?

For comparison, the Premier League had to wait until the fifth round of matches on 17 September 2023 for its first goalless draw of that season (Bournemouth and Chelsea). But, as Roe points out, you would not be surprised to find that the 21 divisions in which a longer wait was needed for a goalless draw all happened a long time ago.

The longest top-flight wait came in just the second ever season of English league football, 1889-90, when the first goalless draw arrived in the 17th round of matches. That was only beaten by the 1894-95 season in the second tier, where the first of only two goalless draws all season came on 23 March 1895 between Arsenal and Crewe Alexandra – the 25th match of the season for Crewe (and the 26th for Arsenal).

Equalling that record is a much more recent example from the Scottish third tier in 2013-14, which also had its first goalless draw in the 25th round of matches (between Airdrie United and East Fife on 22 February 2014).

So if Italy's scoreless streak stretches into round six, Serie A will be sailing into genuinely uncharted waters for the past three decades – and making a mockery of the notion that every modern game ends with at least one goal.