Inter Milan Crowned Serie A Champions Again
By the time the final whistle went at San Siro, it felt less like a coronation than the confirmation of something everyone had known for weeks. Inter were champions of Italy again, Scudetto No 21 secured with a routine win over Parma in a match they did not even need to win.
A draw would have been enough. On this day, on the next, or on one of the two after that. Their rivals had already fallen away, first gradually, then in a heap. Napoli, Milan, Juventus – none of them managed a victory this weekend. By now, it barely mattered.
Inter began the round 10 points clear. They ended it 12 ahead, the best side in Serie A by a distance. Eighty-two goals scored in a league where nobody else has reached 60. Seventeen clean sheets, matched only by Como. The numbers tell one story. The way they handled Parma told the rest.
Champions in cruise control
Parma arrived with nothing obvious to chase. Twelfth in the table, safe, no European dream to cling to. They could have gone through the motions. They didn’t. They bit into tackles, they tried to break, they forced Inter to stay honest.
For 25 minutes, they even held the champions-elect at arm’s length. Then Nicolò Barella stepped in from midfield and smashed a shot against the crossbar. The ball cannoned down on to Zion Suzuki, who twisted and clawed it off the line as Marcus Thuram closed in. A reprieve. Nothing more.
The pressure kept building. Just before the interval, Piotr Zielinski slipped a clever pass down the right channel. Thuram burst through, opened his body and rolled the finish into the far corner. One-nil, and with it the sense that the title party could start to loosen its shoulders.
Inter’s second underlined why they are so far ahead of the rest. Two substitutes, two fresh legs, one more ruthless move: Lautaro Martínez cutting the ball across, Henrikh Mkhitaryan arriving to sweep it home. A goal made from depth, from options, from the kind of bench most of Serie A can only envy.
This has been their edge all season. Not just a strong XI, but a squad that keeps coming at you.
A title won through depth and defiance
Inter have done this while spending long stretches without key men. Lautaro, the league’s top scorer, has missed 10 starts with a stubborn calf problem. Denzel Dumfries spent three months out and needed ankle surgery. Hakan Calhanoglu, scoring at a rate of a goal every 183 minutes from midfield, managed only 22 league appearances.
They should have wobbled. They never really did.
That resilience reflects many people, but above all Cristian Chivu. When he walked into the job last summer, few saw this kind of first season coming. He was not even Inter’s first choice. The club went after Cesc Fàbregas, only to find him committed to Como. Chivu, with just a brief spell in charge of Parma behind him, hardly looked like the obvious Plan B for a club of this size.
What he did have was Inter in his bones. Seven years as a player here, three Serie A titles, part of the historic treble. Six more years shaping the club’s youth sides from the touchline. He understood the building, the expectations, the scars.
And Inter were scarred. Last season’s chase for a quadruple under Simone Inzaghi ended in nothing, the dream smashed to pieces in a 5-0 humiliation by Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final. There was no time to grieve. The Club World Cup in the US started two weeks later. Inter went out in their first knockout game, beaten 2-0 by Fluminense, and the tension that had been simmering finally boiled over.
Calhanoglu and other injured players were allowed to leave the training base to continue their rehab at home. Rumours swirled that he was talking to Galatasaray. Lautaro, who had dragged his own injured body through the end of that season, snapped.
“You have to want to be here. We are fighting to achieve something. Anyone who doesn’t want to be here, can leave,” he said.
Ten months on, both he and Calhanoglu were still in Inter shirts, on the San Siro pitch, spinning a cardboard Scudetto badge with a giant “21” at its heart. The midfielder spoke of a group that had become “more of a family” and credited Chivu for pulling them closer. Lautaro, speaking to Dazn, stood by his words from the Club World Cup but left them in the past. The only thing he wanted to talk about now was how hard they had worked, and how special this felt.
For those who lived through last year’s collapse, this title lands like overdue justice.
Chivu’s evolution, not revolution
Inter under Inzaghi played some of the most daring football in Europe. The tactical framework he built was bold, intricate, at times breathtaking. Chivu did not rip that up. He adjusted it. A touch more aggression in the press. A bit more directness when space opened up. Evolution, not revolution.
There is a case that they have stepped back on the continental stage. Last season’s side beat Barcelona and Bayern Munich before imploding against PSG. Chivu’s Inter did not reach the last 16 this time, falling to Bodø/Glimt in the knockout phase playoff. In Serie A, they lost twice to Milan, took a single point from two games against Napoli and needed a contentious red card for Pierre Kalulu to finally beat Juventus.
But titles are not decided solely in the scontri diretti. Inter have hunted this league in the long game. From November to February they won 14 of 15 matches, interrupted only by a 2-2 draw with Napoli. When others stumbled, they kept grinding. When others ran out of breath, they were still accelerating.
They have done it with familiar faces and with new ones. Francesco Pio Esposito, Ange-Yoan Bonny, Petar Sucic – fresh energy feeding into an old machine. They missed out on their main transfer target, Ademola Lookman, last summer and simply reimagined the team. Federico Dimarco responded with a season from left-back that scarcely seems real: 17 assists, a full-back functioning as a playmaker.
Nothing about this campaign has been flawless. No season ever is. What matters is the table, and Inter have now won Serie A three times in six years, each under a different coach. Chivu joins that line as the first Inter manager since José Mourinho to win the Scudetto at the first attempt.
The party and what comes next
The story is not finished yet. Lazio await in the Coppa Italia final on 13 May, the chance of a domestic double hanging in the air. Inter have chosen to delay their formal Scudetto ceremony until after that match. The trophy will be lifted at San Siro four days later, after the final home game against Verona.
Try telling that to anyone who was there on Sunday night. Streamers, fireworks, players dancing on the pitch. Lautaro, Dimarco, Thuram, Barella, Pio Esposito and the rest drifting out into the Milan night, joining the thousands flooding Piazza Duomo as they always do when a title comes home.
A year ago, Inter stood on the brink of something historic and watched it crumble. This time, they have their hands on the prize, the scars still visible but the doubts pushed aside. The question now is simple: is this the peak of a cycle reborn, or just the start of a new one?
