Deportivo, Parma, Hamburg. Not just a football hipster’s holiday hit-list, but a sample of erstwhile headline acts who have returned to their respective top flights in recent years.
You can throw Leeds United, Nottingham Forest, Schalke and Malaga into the mix too.
But with such footballing royalty back in the big time, where can you find Europe’s current sleeping giants? Which once-mighty sides are still snoozing?
We first need to establish some criteria – history, heritage, fanbase, stadium. Clubs with huge potential who currently exist outside the top flight.
Calling a big city home helps, but it is not a deal-maker – sorry to fans of Bristol City and second-tier Russian outfit FC Ufa, where the local population tops one million.
Likewise, some clubs with good-sized stadiums have not made the cut. Bari, whose Stadio San Nicola is the third-largest in Italy and was built for Italia ’90, stands out, though some of their calcio colleagues outside Serie A also have grounds of more than 30,000 – Hellas Verona, Messina and Palermo among them.
There’s a plethora of ex-Premier League teams with top-flight worthy arenas and storied pasts, while Germany is stacked full of historic clubs with huge homes who arguably deserve a spot – Fortuna Dusseldorf, Wolfsburg, Hannover 96 – but we can’t include them all.
A sleeping giant must have experienced some element of former glory and Pro Vercelli are the obvious candidate there, winning seven Italian titles by 1922. But, despite being under new ownership, the third-tier side boast neither the ground nor local population to awaken that historic status any time soon.
The other nuance is, that success cannot have come too recently. West Ham, for example, won a European competition three years ago, Wolves are recent top-flight regulars; likewise Stade de Reims, twice European Cup runners-up, and eight-time French champions Nantes.
Leaving out Steaua Bucharest was another big call. European Cup winners 40 years ago and Romania’s most dominant club, they now play in Liga II. But, following a deeply divisive split, many of the traditional fanbase follow top-flight FCSB. So who really owns that legacy?
And there was a case for Boavista, title winners in 2001 but whose existence now hangs by a thread. Facing financial ruin, despite fans’ best efforts, they have been ejected from Portugal’s professional leagues.
Anyway, let’s get on with this. Piped through the matrix above, here are my top 10 European sleeping giants – you can have your say in the comments, too.
