Fallen Giants

Throughout history, teams have come and gone from the top-table of their domestic leagues all the way down the leagues and, in some cases, to extinction.

Whether it be Wanderers FC or Arenas Club de Getxo, football is rife with stories of supporters saying “once upon a time…”. Europe’s five major leagues (England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France) are littered with teams lower down the pyramid chocked full of those fallen giants. This is a piece checking in on those once top-half of the top-flight stalwarts and seeing how their recovery, or lack thereof, is going.

For the purpose of the piece, we have decided to narrow it down to just one club from each country, although there are several worthy of comment.

ENGLAND: Nottingham Forest 

There have been and remain several giants of English football that are meandering around the EFL’s 72 rather than in their apparently rightful place of the top-flight. From Sunderland and Bolton to Derby and Blackburn, but one club that has such a distinguished history is that of Nottingham Forest.

The story of Brian Clough’s Forest is a well told one. He took over the club after a difficult few time on a personal level. A dispute with long-time assistant manager Peter Taylor, a terrible stint as Leeds manager followed by a short spell in the lower divisions with Brighton had succeeded his incredibly successful time as Forest’s East Midlands rivals Derby. 

Clough took over Forest in January 1975 with the club sitting 13th  in the second division, they finished the season 16th. After a full season in charge, Forest managed an eighth placed finish. Then, Peter Taylor re-joined Clough and 11 months later in May 1977, Bolton Wanderers’ defeat to Wolves clinched Forest’s automatic promotion spot to the top-flight in third place. 

©Getty / Getty Images

In 1977-78, the following campaign after promotion, Forest won the league and League Cup double. The year after that they again won the League Cup as well as the European Cup; a title they would defend in the 1979-80 season. It was a story that will never be repeated anywhere across Europe. 

The two-time European champions eventually succumbed and were relegated back into the second division in the inaugural season of the Premier League and Clough would leave the club; his final act in management. 

They would be promoted the next year and spent the next three seasons in the Premier League before another relegation and then another promotion in 96-97 and 97-98. Relegation in 1999 was the last time Forest played top-flight football. 

In the 22 seasons since that year, they have spent 19 in the second tier with a three-year spell in League One between 2005 and 2008. Since promotion back into the Championship in 2008, they have finished in the top six on just two occasions, in 09-10 and 10-11. Their final day of the season collapsed, behind closed doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, at the end of the 2019-20 campaign was emblematic of the bleak and failing club that Forest have become. 

They went into the final day three points above Swansea. Swansea had a goal difference of +6 whilst Forest had a goal difference of +11. Forest were at home and Swansea were away. With just over 25 minutes to go, Forest were drawing 1-1 at home to Stoke whilst Swansea were being held 1-1 at Reading. Forest lost 4-1 and Swansea won 4-1, with Stoke and Swansea’s fourth goals coming in stoppage time. 

They have had to sack their most recent failing manager Chris Hughton in the early stages of the season with the fallen giants in the bottom three. To replace him they appointed Steve Cooper – the manager of Swansea on that dramatic final day. 

Results have improved since Cooper’s arrival but the thought of a top six finish is a long way off and a return to the top-flight will probably, once again, be pushed back.   

FRANCE: Auxerre

In 1996, Auxerre were crowned French champions for the first and only time in their history. They have been a pillar of French football’s development, both on a domestic and international scale, throughout their history. 

An example of their contribution to the French national side would be Joel Bats and Jean-Marc Ferreri featuring at France’s triumph at UEFA Euro 1984 whilst Patrice Garande won the gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics of the same year, after finishing top scorer in Ligue 1 as Auxerre managed their highest ever finish of third place.

From the early 80’s all the way up until the late 00’s, Auxerre were a side that challenged the established order and, eventually, they became a part of that established order. They enjoyed historic UEFA Cup nights against Sporting CP and AC Milan in the 1980’s before truly coming into their own in the 90’s and noughties.

Auxerre won a league title and four Coupe de France between 1993 and 2005. In that 12-year period, they were also winners of the UEFA Intertoto Cup on two occasions as well as runners’ up once. Between the 1983-84 season and the 2009-10 season, they finished in the top three six times. This, for an urban area population of around 30,000 around that time, is phenomenal. 

They made themselves into giants… giants that would eventually fall. They were relegated in the 2011-12 season, just two years after finishing third, and have not been back to the top-flight since. 

The Burgundy side had a 32-year stint in the top-flight that achieved more than most clubs will in their history. Eric Cantona, Basile Boli, Djibril Cisse and Philippe Mexes are among those that owe their senior breakthrough to the club whilst many others, such as Stephane Guivarc’h and Laurent Blanc owe a debt of gratitude as well.

Under the management of Jean-Marc Fulan, Auxerre sit third in the Ligue 2 table having won five and drawn five of their opening ten matches. Unlike Forest, this is a fallen giant looking to bounce back this season. 
Auxerre sit proudly inside France’s top dozen football clubs for most honours won. 

GERMANY: Schalke

It wouldn’t be an overly bold statement to suggest that Schalke, based on history, status and the size of their fan base, are the third, or maybe even second, biggest club in Germany. Just ten years ago, they were in the UEFA Champions League semi-final against Manchester United. Just seven years ago, they were ranked as the 14th most valuable football club in the world with a valuation of around £355 million. 

Now, they sit in Germany’s second division.

They had been a perennial top-half challenger in Germany’s top-flight for nearly their entire existence up until the COVID-19 affected seasons of 2019-20 and 2020-21. They came back to finish their season behind closed doors and the absence of their fans was felt more in Gelsenkirchen then, perhaps, anywhere else. David Wagner was sacked mid-way through the 20-21 campaign but that, or the emergence of American forward Matthew Hoppe, was not enough to stave off a historic relegation.

Schalke have never won the Bundesliga but they won its predecessor, the German Championship, on seven occasions as well as five DFB Pokal, one win in the now defunct Ligapokal and one Super Cup. Their most famous of seasons came in the 1996-97 campaign when they won the UEFA Cup, defeating Roy Hodgson’s Inter Milan in the final of that competition. 

Alongside Hamburg, they are competing in a 2. Bundesliga that is proving extremely problematic for fallen giants. After nine games, Schalke sit outside the top three and any hope of a promotion amongst the likes of the aforementioned Hamburg, Nuremberg, Werder Bremen and Hannover. 

ITALY: Parma

Parma is a story similar to that of Auxerre. A small town club that rose above its station to create a legacy that would potentially even define an era, before a collapse. 

©Parma

The 1990’s was the golden era for domestic Italian football and Parma were at the heart of it. Channel 4’s coverage in England gave the league a mystique and reputation that, perhaps, has never and will never be matched by any league in the future. The best players in the world played in Italy and nearly every side had a player or their moment that would go down in folklore.

Parma had never played in the top-flight of Italian football until their promotion to Serie A in 1990. Between 1990 and 2002, they would go on to be one hell of a story with a collection of players that still evoke gasps and involuntary chuckles of appreciation and wonder to this day.

In that 12 year period, they finished second in Serie A (bare in mind the depth in quality and teams challenging for the title, the seven sisters), won the Coppa Italia on three occasions and finished runners’ up twice, won the Supercoppa once and finished runners’ up on three occasions, won the UEFA Cup twice, won the European Cup Winners’ Cup once and finished runners’ up once and won the European Super Cup. Their four European titles have them fourth in the lost for most European trophies won by an Italian club, behind Juventus, Inter and AC Milan.

Gianluigi Buffon, Faustino Asprilla, Lillian Thuram, Fabio Cannavaro, Hernan Crespo, Dino Baggio, Gianfranco Zola, Roberto Sensini, Juan Sebastian Veron, Enrico Chiesa, Tomas Brolin… with Nevio Scala, Carlo Ancelotti and Alberto Malesani in the dugout. 

Financial turmoil saw the club dissolved in 2015 and re-entered and re-founded back into Italian football in Serie D. Three successive promotions meant they returned to the top-flight in 2018.

They were relegated last season but have some strong investment from their American owner and president Kyle Krause over the summer which means their spell in Serie B shouldn’t last too long. 

Parma re-signed Gianluigi Buffon in the summer alongside the impressive addictions of Franco Vazquez and Felix Correia. They have started slowly with just two wins in their opening seven matches but they should find themselves in and amongst the promotion challengers in no time. 

SPAIN: Real Zaragoza 

Throughout the Spanish lower leagues there are teams like Deportivo La Coruna and Recreativo Huelva, even Racing Santander. Giants of the game in Spain that have helped form the domestic structure that exists on their own bit of the Iberian peninsula. 

However, whether it financial mismanagement or just a general decline in interest, attendance and quality, they have found themselves trickle down and one of the biggest of those failing clubs is Real Zaragoza.

The capital city of Aragon, Zaragoza should be a top-flight team, season in and season out. In fact, of you were to tally up the points from the history of La Liga, Zaragoza would be placed ninth. The six-time Copa del Rey winners and one time UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup winners sit seventh on the honours table for Spanish football.

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Club, Atletico Madrid, Valencia and Sevilla. Those are the only teams ahead of Zaragoza – that alone speaks volumes.

In 2007, there was a government survey asking the Spanish population which football teams they supported. 2.7% of the population voted for Zaragoza; that put them exactly seventh, mirroring their place on the honours list.

During the 1960’s, the club earned the tag “Los Magnificos” as they enjoyed a golden era of relative success. The Aragonese club finished in the top five for eight successive seasons as well as two cup triumphs. Their most famous night could perhaps be the 10th of May 1995 where they defeated Arsenal in Paris to win their second European trophy in the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup.

Now they play in the Segunda Division under the tutelage of journeyman manager Juan Ignacio Martinez. They have won just one game in their opening 12 with two thirds of their matches finishing level. That opening nine matches has them tucked inside the bottom four and the relegation places into the third tier of Spanish football.