The latest instalment of perhaps the most iconic rivalry in world football ended with an unexpected result.
Manchester United, who up to this point have been in truly awful form this season, managed to hold overwhelming favourites Liverpool to a 1-1 draw. In fact, the Red Devils almost pulled off a stunning upset against the Merseyside juggernaut, but Adam Lallana's 85th-minute goal matched Marcus Rashford's first-half strike for United and earned a share of the points for Liverpool.
The result also meant that Liverpool's unbeaten league streak would continue for yet another game. Although it is still early in the season, this fact is notable because prior to the match, Liverpool midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum claimed that Liverpool could be able to complete the entire Premier League campaign without losing a single match.
Over the last half-century, this achievement has only been accomplished four times by a club in one of Europe's four major leagues: Perugia in the 1978-79 Serie A, AC Milan in the 1991-92 Serie A, Arsenal in the 2003-04 Premier League, and Juventus in the 2011-12 Serie A.
When looking at these four seasons, it becomes clear that all four "Invincibles" campaigns were very different.
There really isn't much to say about Perugia's unbeaten season other than the fact that they did not even win the league, finishing three points behind AC Milan. This team was certainly a one-season wonder; they were seventh in the league the season before and ninth the season after. Perugia have not even been close to anything approaching that level of success since.
AC Milan's season was the most dominant of all four mentioned. With legendary head coach Fabio Capello at the helm, this was an outrageously stacked team containing players such as Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, and Marco van Basten. They won the league by eight points over Juventus; however, it must be remembered that this was a 34-game season in the era when a win was worth two points. After adjusting for scoring system changes and applying the new point ratio to 38 games instead of 34, the Rossoneri would have earned 87 points to Juve's 74. Perhaps even more astonishing was their goal difference of +53, which was a remarkable 30 goals superior to Juve's. In general, this was one of the greatest single-season teams of all time.
Arsenal's unbeaten season was almost as dominant as Milan's. Although the Gunners did not possess the overall star power that the Milan team did, it nevertheless did have some all-time greats including Patrick Vieira, Ashley Cole, Dennis Bergkamp, and of course, Thierry Henry. However, despite the general strength of this team, this particular season could be viewed as something of a carry job. This can be seen in the fact that in the voting for the 1992 FIFA World Player of the Year, three Milan players featured in the top 10 with van Basten taking top honours, while only Henry did so in 2004, finishing second. Henry had a season for the ages as he scored 39 goals in all competitions, including 30 in the league. Arsenal finished the season 11 points ahead of Chelsea to clinch their third league title in seven seasons in emphatic fashion.
Despite completing an unbeaten league campaign, Juventus were not particularly dominant in the season which they did so. The Bianconeri only won the league title over Milan by four points in a closely contested Serie A title race. This was very much a team effort; no Juve player scored more than 10 goals that season. However, individual standouts included Andrea Pirlo who had the best season of his career, as well as Arturo Vidal who had a breakout season in his first campaign in Turin as he became recognized as one of the world's best central midfielders.
It is certainly possible that Liverpool will emulate these teams. They have the world's best coach in Jürgen Klopp as well as several players who seem to be all-time greats in the making such as Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah, and Alisson. This already seems to be one of the greatest teams of the last decade, will almost certainly win the Premier League, and are probably the favourites to win back-to-back Champions League title. Even taking all of this into consideration, an unbeaten league campaign would send their legacy to a completely new level because of the rarity of such an achievement.
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