What is a sleeping giant? In simple terms a club that has achieved glory in the past and are presently languishing in the league underachieving due to various reasons from financial irregularities or scandals or any other reason.Or a sleeping giant can alternatively be a club with all facilities,a decent crop of players but yet not able to compete with the dominant teams in the league.But really,the tale of the downfall of the mighty clubs from the past is what catches the eye. Its always sad to see a top club from the past not able to compete in the highest levels.Fans reminiscent of the old glory days as they shed tears now in the present thinking that the history books were filled with their clubs name.The theory is simple,rival clubs improvise and grow bigger as the blasts from the past slowly but steadily fall down and are unable to emulate the heroics from their golden eras. A very surprising thing is that the clubs termed as sleeping giants have a huge stadium(barring a few) but more importantly a huge fan base.What went wrong with these clubs?Which clubs are sleeping giants will be the top rated question.Lets highlight the clubs in Europe where the best football is played that is in England,Italy and Spain.The English clubs have a huge tradition and the premiership is the most watched league in the world.And because of the popularity ,massive number of fans and excellent stadia we find the highest number of underachieving clubs in this part of Europe.Almost immediately the club which comes in everyones head has to be Newcastle United.The Magpies have been consistently disappointing the Toon faithful especially after the sacking of Sir Bobby Robson.Atleast he had brought the club in the top 6 consistently.The 90’s is when Newcastle came very close on winning the silverware but after that they have never even been near it.They have probably one of the best stadiums in the world-St. James’s Park and the turn out is amazing as the Geordies come out every time their team plays,although in their defence they do generally have injury problems to their star players. A lame excuse for a club with heavy investments and also a decent transfer activity as their capture of Micheal Owen shows there is no lack of funds.But the chopping of managers and injury crisis have seen the biggest club in the north east part of England stoop to an all time low as they finished 13th.But under Big Sam,they hope to better things around this season and build for the future.Another top clubs with a lot of money and underachieving has to be Spurs.The north London club were expected to break in to the top 4 this season,but they have disappointed so badly that they lie currently near the foot of the table.League founders and 1983 Champions League winners Aston Villa are also one of the sleeping giants.But the club with glorious past surely didn’t have the fundings in recent seasons but with Randy Lerner’s arrival villa look to reclaim their old glory days.The take over by millionaires in recent times will help some of the clubs,but old giants like Nottingham Forest,Leeds United,Preston North End are in dire straits and have no immediate chance of even playing in the top flight.Moving on to Italy, where we find the clubs here which were big in the past in a condition worse than any of its English or Spanish counterparts.Starting of with the seven time scudetto winners Bologna who are currently degrading in Serie B. They were Serie A regulars,and they have fallen miserably and the club cannot digest their current position.Napoli FC,Parma AC have all gone through financial irregularities with the latter atleast playing their brand of football in the country’s top flight.Napoli came up from Serie B last season are looking good this season,as they remind people the association of Diego Maradona and Napoli FC. Genoa,the oldest club in Italy had a freakish time around more recently as they were relegated due to match rigging scandals.Yet they had Real Zaragozas top marksman-Diego Milito and sold him to his current club for an amount of 3.2 million pounds.More astonishingly, they paid River Plate 8.5 million pounds for Argentinian Lucaino Figueroa,surely a record for a lower league club.Currently they are back in Serie A for redeeming themselves but expect a mid table finish for the Rossoblu.
Our final destination-Spain; where the first rank for the biggest under achiever in recent times goes to none other than Atletico Madrid. Not as popular as their next door neighbours,the 9 time la liga winners should have performed much better than what recent history shows.With one of the biggest Stadiums in Spain-Vicente Calderon this season they were expected to do much better.They lost their best home grown talent and talismanic skipper F.Torres but they strengthened their squad with Diego Forlan,Simao,J.Reyes over the summer along with full time international players like Maxi,Leo franco,Pernia etc.But somewhat like Tottenham hotspurs,Javier Aguirre’s side have failed to even win a match.They have to start playing well soon,otherwise even reaching the uefa cup would be difficult this time around.Atletic Bilbao another sleeping giant barely managed to escape relegation last time around.The 8 time la liga winners will surely hope on avoiding the drop this time around with an all Spanish squad and the return of Asier Del Horno.Clubs like Deportivo la coruna who used to do well along with other old time giants have definitely been hurt by the teams that have risen in recent times-Sevilla,Zaragoza,Villareal,Getafe.
That’s football for you-where you have to really fight hard to remain on top,but you never really can predict anything.The mighty have fallen,giving a chance to new superpowers; yet they are trying hard to come back to where they were.They are definitely giants in the game but their time of uprising and revival will only be seen in the future.Some of the clubs have had positive things going around for them off the pitch and are hoping for a bright future if not silverware whilst for some its looking like there is no way back.Football can be cruel sometimes,so either the clubs could come back to life or always remain a sleeping giant. Whatever happens, only time will tell.
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