Juventus 2-0 Sampdoria: Sarri Wins Maiden Serie A Title With Two Games to Spare

Juventus making history is getting a bit boring now, isn't it?

For those of you who stopped counting ages ago, it's now nine Serie A titles in a row for the Turin giants, who swept aside Claudio Ranieri's Sampdoria to move seven points clear of Inter with two games to play.

Juve returned from lockdown with a bit between their teeth and it soon became clear that there would be no miracle from the likes of Lazio, Inter or Atalanta. The latter briefly threatened to make it interesting, but heading into their third-from-last fixture (or 'antepenultimate' if we're feeling clever) they needed just one win to put themselves out of reach.

And, inspired by Cristiano Ronaldo, that they did, with Maurizio Sarri becoming the third manager since 2011 to win a league title with Juve.

The encounter at the Allianz Stadium had an all-business feel to it, and you never really thought anything other than a home win was incoming. Ronaldo opened the scoring, because of course he did, when an intelligent free-kick from Miralem Pjanic put him in a yard of space on the edge of the area, and with a right boot like the hammer of Thor, he thundered one past Emil Audero.

1-0 can look precarious when there's a league title on the line, but things got a lot more comfortable shortly before the second half's scripted water break. Federico Bernardeschi got his first of the season from close range, and from there on out it was easy street for the hosts, whose comfortable position was only compounded when Morten Thorsby saw red for a petulant second booking.

Ronaldo spurned the chance to make it three when he smashed a penalty off the crossbar, but regardless, that's now nine titles on the bounce. Until this freakish Juve team came along, no-one in Italy had ever gone as high as six.

Freaks of nature, they really are.