Clough won the title with Derby too. The guy has quite the list of achievements to be fair.
Title winning campaigns by non-elite clubs
- Thread starter Luke1995
- Start date
Liverpool 19/20 season*
Very well could be. The last 10 games, I remember, were almost a competition between Depor and Barca on who could slip the most.
Amazing season from Depor, and holy feck, Djalminha, was something else. Very forgotten player with amazing flair. And the likes of Fran, Makaay, Turu Flores, Victor were all great technical players who understood the meaning of playing as a team. I remember Djalminha even small-slapping Beckham against Real Madrid, provoking Beckham to get carded
A joker of a player.I think all their players were from or around Auxerre, which made it even more remarkable.
The term "thin skinned" comes to mind with this comment
You are right, I m sorry. I don't know why in my head they were champions
Another poster pointed out too. I was completely sure and obviously wrong and i m sorry.
The remarkable part about Montpellier is that the majority of the team came from the academy.
They certaintly weren't nothing but the 5 seasons before that they were 13th, 9th , 7th , 7th and 6th so hardly enjoying their best period in German football. You are right on the second point as he joined them in 2008 but what I meant was he hadn't completely established the team/ style he wanted , for example after that year they were 5th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd. Not trying to take anything away from Wolfsburg as it's a fantastic achievement but nothing wrong with a bit of further analysis into how it happened
Bordeaux winning the French League
City.
12 years ago they were getting beaten 8-1 by Middlesbrough.
12 years ago they were getting beaten 8-1 by Middlesbrough.
There is literally nothing surprising about that one
Wow I honestly hadn’t realised Klopp made such a dramatic impact on them. I remember Dortmund being a force in the late 90s and they even won a European Cup, but I hadn’t realised they had dropped off the pace so much.
I guess you are slightly more right than I previously gave you credit for!
From memory they had a pretty good team in the early 00s. Rosicky was very influential in number 10 role and they had Koller and Marcio Amouso scoring hatfuls upfront
Won the Bundesliga in 01/02 and reached Uefa cup final. However they then hit really bad financial troubles which resulted in their low finishes until Klopp turned up.
They're a bit like Atletico Madrid in that they've always very good in finding good strikers to replace the ones they have to sell/decline. Just looking at their top scorers list since mid 90s.
Stephane Chapuisat (was reminded of him watching the euro 96 games). Hit double figures in 5 out of 6 seasons in the 90s.
Marico Amoroso. Was a very good striker for Udinese and Parma in Serie A and had fantastic 01/02 season.
Jan Koller top scorer for next three seasons.
Alex Frei (remember him?) then picked up the mantle.
Lucas Barrios (remember him?!) then was the first one to get the Klopp love, 19 goals in 09/10 and then 16 the following season when they won the league. He then went to China and faded into obscurity. Ironically played on loan at Montpellier in 14/15.
After that Lewandowski and Aubameyang era.
Just seems one of those clubs that is a strikers dream particularly if you're an emerging one as they always play in an exciting and forward manner. Now Haaland is gaining the benefit.
Deportivo won La Liga in 2000 with only 69 points. United got more points in Van Gaal’s first season.
Lazio and Roma winning Serie A is mentionable as I suppose they aren’t “elite” clubs but pretty big clubs though.
Stuttgart and Wolfsburg winning the Bundesliga in recent memory. 2007 and 2009 I believe.
Montpellier winning the French league in 2011/12. Nantes also won it in recent enough memory.
I know it seems like a sly dig but I suppose Man City are a shout given that 3 years previous they were 10th but I suppose the money they have is “elite” even though they are a pretty mediocre sized club.
Lazio and Roma winning Serie A is mentionable as I suppose they aren’t “elite” clubs but pretty big clubs though.
Stuttgart and Wolfsburg winning the Bundesliga in recent memory. 2007 and 2009 I believe.
Montpellier winning the French league in 2011/12. Nantes also won it in recent enough memory.
I know it seems like a sly dig but I suppose Man City are a shout given that 3 years previous they were 10th but I suppose the money they have is “elite” even though they are a pretty mediocre sized club.
I also always find the Auxerre French title win in 1996 pretty crazy. Their only ever league title won by a manager who was managing them from 1964 until 2005! After 30 years as manager he won their first ever league title and they won the French cup in the same season.
5 years before City won their title in 2012, they scored just 10 home league goals in 2006/2007 under Pearce, including 0 after New Year's Eve. That was even fewer than Derby in 2007/2008 or Sunderland in 2002/2003 or 2005/2006.
I remember one my teachers at school at the time was a season ticket holder, and had to miss the game in which they scored 3 goals (I think against Fulham) due to illness. So he went to 18 home league games that season, only saw them score 7 goals, and saw them fail to score in 13 of those games. Must have been pretty grim.
Depor finished in top three 9 times in 13 seasons from 1992-2004, so they were definitely a La Liga heavyweight at the time. It was very happy for them to win the title in 2000 after their heartbreak and the Djukic missed penalty in 1994. Them not winning it at some point would have seemed crazy.
I remember one my teachers at school at the time was a season ticket holder, and had to miss the game in which they scored 3 goals (I think against Fulham) due to illness. So he went to 18 home league games that season, only saw them score 7 goals, and saw them fail to score in 13 of those games. Must have been pretty grim.
Depor finished in top three 9 times in 13 seasons from 1992-2004, so they were definitely a La Liga heavyweight at the time. It was very happy for them to win the title in 2000 after their heartbreak and the Djukic missed penalty in 1994. Them not winning it at some point would have seemed crazy.
Vfb Stuttgart in 2006-07. Yes Bayern had a horrible season that year, finishing outside the CL places and that led to them spending massively in the summer and recruiting the likes of Ribery and Klose.
But not many would have fancied Stuttgart to be the winners, having finished 9th the previous season. While not a small club by any means, their last league win had been 15 years ago. A young team led by Mario Gomez and having the likes of Khedira wasn't one really fancied to be anywhere near the league title.
Werder Bremen, with Diego as their talisman were the team fancied to be the one to really challenge Bayern's dominance but Stuttgart ended up trumping them, as well as Schalke to the title.
But not many would have fancied Stuttgart to be the winners, having finished 9th the previous season. While not a small club by any means, their last league win had been 15 years ago. A young team led by Mario Gomez and having the likes of Khedira wasn't one really fancied to be anywhere near the league title.
Werder Bremen, with Diego as their talisman were the team fancied to be the one to really challenge Bayern's dominance but Stuttgart ended up trumping them, as well as Schalke to the title.
Worth mentioning that in that season refs were assigned randomly to the games.
Not only the winner was a surprise. Also the top 4 or top 5 in that season were quite unexpected.
Worth mentioning that it was also the last season of random referee selection.
I didn’t remember that part. It’s interesting though, and intriguing. It’s probably more worrying than anything else!
Might be a stupid question, but how are refs usually assigned to games in Seria A?
Over here in Denmark it was a major shock when Herfølge BK won the 99/00 championship out of nowhere
They finished the 33 games with 56points and a +3 goal difference
They were relegated the following season dissapeared into obscurity before merging with some neighboring clubs.
Also Silkeborg winning the 94 league title was a major upset
They finished the 33 games with 56points and a +3 goal difference
They were relegated the following season dissapeared into obscurity before merging with some neighboring clubs.
Also Silkeborg winning the 94 league title was a major upset
I think that one is my favourite. What happened to them the season after? Sold their best players?
Were these great performances by the eventual champions or a combination of subpar seasons by the bigger clubs, ala Leicester 15-16?
Another fun aspect of that game was Felix Magath (whose previous job was the Bayern post) substituting keepers in the dying minutes of the game for no apparent reason.
Bundesliga was a different competition though before say 2013, in the 00s Dortmund, Bremen, Stuttgart and Wolfsburg won it. Schalke and Leverkusen came extremely close, too. So Wolfsburg's win, while suprising and impressive, wasn't nearly as big an upset as some of the other cases in this thread.
Schalke and Leverkusen especially botched their titles in exquisite fashion:
https://betting.betfair.com/footbal...-the-four-minute-championship-200515-723.html
Another one in 2007 when they traveled to Dortmund with the promise to win the title at their rival's ground and get them relegated in the process only to collapse in the most pathetic fashion.
Or Leverkusen dropping the title on the last matchday by losing 0-2 in Munich suburb Unterhaching, courtesy of a Ballack own goal and two years later dropping a 5 point lead in the final three games.
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People saying Montpellier and Auxerre, but don't forget Lens in 1998 after beating out another non-elite, Metz (with Pires), on GD.
I remember it so well. We had to beat them to all but secure the league and the Sky commentator mentioned they hadn’t scored a home goal all year long when about a minute later they got a penalty. Thankfully Edwin saved it and United won 1-0 and were champions the next day.
They truly won the lottery when the Sheikh bought them up.
I remember 2001 well. Schalke game had already finished and they all went onto the pitch at their old ground to celebrate. Bayern scored from a free kick inside the box didn't they, I assume for a back pass so perhaps the Hamburg keeper was in on things....Hamburg had actually scored in 89th minute so guess that's the Bayern equivalent of 2012.
Agreed. Even my team Blackburn were better than City before that takeover (finishing above them in 5 out of the previous 6 seasons). They didn't overtake the likes of Villa and Everton until the 2nd season post-takeover, notably after their huge spending spree during the summer of 2009 including the acrimonious pursuit of Lescott when Hughes called Everton a small club.
Yes Schalke were champions for 4 minutes in 2001 and then for 8 minutes in 2007 (albeit earlier in the day and not after their game had ended like in 2001) before Patrik Andersson and Thomas Hitzlsperger respectively spoilt their dreams.
Leverkusen blowing the title twice in 3 years was just crazy, only needing a draw Unterhachting in 2000. That was definitely a competitive decade for the Bundesliga and their could have easily been 7 different league championships in 10 years from 2000-2009 instead of 5 which was still impressive.
In my lifetime (I was born in 1990), while there have been numerous surprise title wins, I definitely Leicester's title in 2016 was comfortably the biggest surprise of the lot, ahead of Auxerre's in 1996, Kaiserslautern's in 1998, Depor's in 2000, Boavista's in 2001, Stuttgart's in 2007, AZ Alkmaar's in 2009 etc, considering all the circumstances.
Michael Ball stamped on Ronaldo's stomach during that game didn't he.
In additional to that terrible goal scoring record at home, their season was mostly remember for nasty incidents i.e. Ben Thatcher's assault on Pendro Mendes, the Ball stamp on Ronaldo, Barton attacking Dabo in training etc.
Considering the guy was loaned out from Schalke and a local academy player of theirs that that would be a truly exceptional twist. The whole four minutes were complete madness, someone told people at Schalke the other game was over, fans were all over the pitch, everyone celebrating and suddenly the feed from the Bayern game appears on the info screens...
Oddly enough Schalke's fans never blamed the keeper who for whatever reason picked up the ball instead of just hoofing it away. They made some conspiracy theory out of it with Markus Merk (perhaps the most respected German referee) who was officiating the game in Hamburg at the supposed center. Even some 10 years later when he worked at a pundit for Sky and was covering a game at Schalke fans throwing stuff at him from the stands and Sky had to put up umbrellas and changed the location of their broadcast desk to a calmer part of the stadium for the next game.
O.k didn't know the background. Will watch the highlights later on to see what happened (can remember Andersson still hammering in the FK despite all the players on the line). Must've been a very obvious one for Merk to award it considering it was practically the last kick of the game.
Came here to post this. What's more impressive is that they won it in 1998 - the season between BVB's CL win and Bayern's CL final appearance
It was just a back pass from his defender, picking it up must have been a brain fart under pressure. Schalke fans smelled a rat, because supposedly these things never never got sanctioned in the real world and because Merk had indicated 3 minutes of stoppage time and the kick had been taken in the 90th+5th minute - missing that this was caused by two minutes passing between the free kick being awarded and its execution.
Molde
CSKA Moscow winning the UEFA Cup in 05
I also thought of Monaco but more so their 1999/2000 league title. They had Fabien Barthez, Rafa Marquez, John Arne Riise, Willy Sagnol, Ludovic Giuly, David Trezeguet, Marcelo Gallardo, Dado Prso and Costinha. Almost all of them went on to star at elite clubs
i think Monaco are too big a club in France to be considered by 99-00. They had already been champions 5 or 6 times and european competition regulars since the late 70s.
Some other Soviet/Russian ones would be the Dynamo Minsk, Zenit Leningrad (they were huge underachievers considering the size and status of the city) and Dnipro back to back wins in 82,83,84 seasons . Alania Vladikavkaz '95, who took the title in a transitional year for the dominant 9 titles in 10 years Spartak team. Rubin Kazan 08 and 09.
Some other Soviet/Russian ones would be the Dynamo Minsk, Zenit Leningrad (they were huge underachievers considering the size and status of the city) and Dnipro back to back wins in 82,83,84 seasons . Alania Vladikavkaz '95, who took the title in a transitional year for the dominant 9 titles in 10 years Spartak team. Rubin Kazan 08 and 09.