Inter & Lazio are finally title contenders again 20 years from 1990s heyday

When Lazio and Inter Milan meet in a top-of-the-table clash on Sunday night, there promises to be an air of unfamiliarity.

This season's unexpected title challenge is nosebleed territory for Lazio, who haven't featured in a title race for years now.

And while Inter have enjoyed periods of supremacy more recently than their rivals from Rome, it's still a decade now since they remotely troubled the all-conquering Juventus.

So you have to rewind to the late 1990s and early 2000s for the last time both Lazio and Inter were genuine challengers at the same time, though it was only Lazio who actually lifted the trophy in those halcyon days for Serie A.

That was a star-studded Inter team, boasting the likes of Javier Zanetti at the back, Diego Simeone and Youri Djorkaeff in midfield, and the Brazilian Ronaldo, Roberto Baggio and Ivan Zamarano in attack.

Though Inter would win the UEFA Cup in 1998, actually beating Lazio 3-0 in the final in Paris, they could never conquer their domestic league, finishing second in 1997-98 and third in 1996-97.

On both occasions, a slightly more brilliant Juventus team featuring the likes of Zinedine Zidane, Alessandro Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi, Edgar Davids et al were crowned champions.

That Inter team reached the quarter-finals of the 1998-1999 Champions League, losing 3-1 on aggregate to Manchester United, who went on to beat Juventus in the semi-finals and win the Treble.

With Italian matches at that time screened live on Channel Four on Sunday afternoons, the league carried a certain glamour to English football fans.

Those leading teams inspired awe and fear, too, especially if your team played in European competition. The first thing Gary Neville wanted to know when United got out of their group in December 1998 was whether Juventus had qualified because they were the European benchmark at the time.

We look back on the Inter team of that period with great admiration and wonder how they didn't win more. The reason was Juventus.

Take the decisive meeting of the teams in April 1998, which Inter fans are still liable to shudder at, when Juventus were awarded a penalty when Del Piero was shoved in the back by Taribo West, just seconds after Ronaldo collided with Mark Iuliano down the other end and referee Piero Ceccarini waved play on.

Back to today and it's little surprise that Juventus again present the biggest obstacle to an Inter title triumph, which would be their first since Jose Mourinho was in charge in 2009-10.

Antonio Conte's squad isn't as blessed with world-class stars as that from two decades ago but they are slowly adding match-winners.

Instead of Ronaldo and Zamorano, we now have Romelu Lukaku and Lautaro Martinez, who have scored 17 and 11 Serie A goals respectively this season.

Perhaps the injury issues Ronaldo suffered during the later part of his time at the San Siro are more akin to those Alexis Sanchez, on loan from Old Trafford, has experienced this season.

Another feature of that vintage Inter team was their solidity at the back, especially during their second-placed finish in 1997-98 when they let in just 27 goals in 34 league games.

This season, with the likes of Stefan de Vrij, Diego Godin and Milan Skriniar at the back, they've also been impressively frugal, conceding only 20 so far, the joint-lowest in the division... with Lazio.

Unlike Inter, the Lazio team of that era did succeed in a title bid, lifting the trophy in 2000 having come agonisingly close 12 months earlier.

Sven-Goran Eriksson was in charge of a team that just looks so cool looking back: Marcelo Salas, Roberto Mancini, Simeone, Juan Sebastian Veron, Pavel Nedved, Alen Boksic, Fabrizio Ravanelli, Alessandro Nesta, Sinisa Mihajlovic etc.

Bankrolled by Sergio Cragnotti, millionaire head of the Cirio food brand, Lazio were making a splash with their big-name purchases.

But it wasn't enough in the 1998-99 campaign as they agonisingly missed out on the Scudetto to AC Milan on the final day of the season.

Fans were furious when the club then sold star striker Christian Vieri to Inter for £30m, with Simeone moving the other way, but the rebuilding job was impressive.

In came Veron and Nestor Sensini from Parma, the veteran Ravanelli and Simeone Inzaghi, the younger brother of Pippo.

They performed well throughout the season, but when Eriksson's side trailed Juventus by five points with just three matches left, it seemed all over.

But Juventus somehow lost 2-0 to Verona to re-open the race and on the final day, after Lazio overcame Reggiana 3-0 to do their bit, wild celebrations were sparked when Perugia earned a point against the Turin giants.

As we know, Eriksson would become England manager just a few months later having also delivered the Italian Cup in a Double triumph.

Simeone Inzaghi is now Lazio's manager, of course, but instead of the headline-grabbing buys of the late 1990s, the current Lazio team has been slowly and shrewdly put together over the past four years.

Ciro Immobile, arguably the most in-form striker in Europe's top leagues, does what Inzaghi used to do, scoring 25 Serie A goals in 23 games this season.

Sergej Milinkovic-Savic controls the midfield, attracting admiring glances from the Premier League, while Francesco Acerbi is the regular presence in defence.

Like Sven's team, the current Lazio vintage are entertaining to watch. They've won 16 of their 23 league games, scoring 53 goals, which is a return second only to Atalanta, some way beneath them in fourth place.

In contrast to Sven's side, who won the last-ever edition of the Cup Winners' Cup by beating Real Mallorca at Villa Park in 1999, this Lazio team haven't yet succeeded in Europe.

They crashed out of the UEFA Europa League in the group stage, finishing below Celtic and Cluj, but this could prove a blessing in disguise as it gives them more preparation time between league fixtures.

So it's been an awful long time since a fixture between Lazio and Inter carried this much significance.

But both may find, then as now, that the biggest obstacle between themselves and glory is Juventus.