Serie A's goalless drought equals the longest wait in 30 years of Italian league data

Serie A has still not produced a single goalless draw this season after five rounds of matches – and the wait is now equal to the longest recorded in more than 30 years of Italian league history, according to research submitted to The Guardian's Knowledge column.

The drought was flagged by reader Stephen Hogg. “There still hasn't been a 0-0 draw in Serie A this season, after— [four/five] rounds of matches,” he wrote. “Is this getting near a record yet?”

Reader Chris Roe, drawing on more than three decades of data, delivered the verdict: “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.”

England's patient fans

English football has rarely tested supporters' patience to such a degree in the modern era. “In the Premier League, we had to wait until the fifth round of matches on 17 September 2023 for a goalless draw (Bournemouth and Chelsea),” Roe noted. “But, you'd not be surprised to find 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 of all came in just the second season of Football League history, 1889-90, when the first goalless draw arrived in the 17th round of matches. That mark was only beaten in the second tier in 1894-95, where the first of just two goalless draws that season came on 23 March 1895 between Arsenal and Crewe Alexandra – the 25th match of the campaign for Crewe and the 26th for Arsenal.

Remarkably, that extraordinary wait of a quarter of a season has been equalled in the modern era – in Scotland. “Equalling this 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),” Roe added.

Whether Serie A can stretch its own run beyond round five remains to be seen, but the purists among us may already be rooting for a stubborn defence somewhere up and down the peninsula.