Biggest achievement in football history?

I remember Leeds doing something special in the early 90s too. Lens of course in 98.

Kaiserslautern in 1998

Won the Bundesliga right after being promoted.

Still can't believe that.

Metz lost it in last matchday , it'd been even more incredible (: Besides never won in their history . Lens won also then.

Well, tbh that was the year of Kaiserslatern in Germany. They were newly promoted..

Looked it up... Leeds for sure.  They were in the second division in 1989-1990 and were 4th in EPL 1990-1991 and then won it 1991-1992.

I didn't really see much footy then as i was in the US.  But i remember my friends going crazy about it lol.

Inter winning the league in 2005/06 wins it imo. No one else before or after has won the league in July

rincon wrote:We can played it down tomorrow, but today its Leicester.

I'm not playing it down, still in genuine disbelief Leceister City are EPL champions. May have to sleep it off to fully recognise their achievement with a calm mind because this only happens on FM.

Doc wrote:

Don't call me James wrote:Back in the day it was more of a level field imo. Football wasn't all about money. Teams like Verona, Nottingham Forest etc is just not as impressive as what Leicester have done in this day and age football is a business and is dominated by sugar daddy clubs.

How is it not impressive? Verona won a Serie A title during its greatest period. Nottingham Forrest won 2 European titles where the great Liverpool, Bayern, Borussia Mönchengladbach sides were very much prevalent. Come on McAgger, you know that is worthy of GL hype.

Cmon man you're reading my post but quoting me to fit your narrative.

I did NOT say it wasn't impressive. I said it wasn't AS impressive as Leicester. In an era where football is driven by money being promoted the year before and winning the title in 2 seasons with a lot of players that were unwanted by other clubs.

Of course what Verona and Nottingham Forest did was impressive.

Leicester in the CL is gonna be weird. 1 years ago I hadn't heard of this team. Next year we may face them in the CL final

Don't call me James wrote:

Doc wrote:

Don't call me James wrote:Back in the day it was more of a level field imo. Football wasn't all about money. Teams like Verona, Nottingham Forest etc is just not as impressive as what Leicester have done in this day and age football is a business and is dominated by sugar daddy clubs.

How is it not impressive? Verona won a Serie A title during its greatest period. Nottingham Forrest won 2 European titles where the great Liverpool, Bayern, Borussia Mönchengladbach sides were very much prevalent. Come on McAgger, you know that is worthy of GL hype.

Cmon man you're reading my post but quoting me to fit your narrative.

I did NOT say it wasn't impressive. I said it wasn't AS impressive as Leicester. In an era where football is driven by money being promoted the year before and winning the title in 2 seasons with a lot of players that were unwanted by other clubs.

Of course what Verona and Nottingham Forest did was impressive.

Did not have a narrative, just didn't read your post correctly. My apologies.

In history? I don't know. Hardly anyone here watched football before the 90s, except a handful of guys. Verona 1985 in Serie A is definitely comparable, although they were 6th the prior season. Once Caldas 2004 Libertadores win. Steaua Bucharest 1986 European Cup title. Nottingham Forest 1978 double. And this is just what a quick google search yields, I'm sure there's more if we go further back.

Meh. Look at the table. Tottenham are 2nd, Arsenal are 3rd. It's like Villarreal (who were playing in 2nd division 3 seasons ago) winning La Liga without Barca, Madrid and Atletico in the league. Atletico 13/14 >>>.

Also to add to that: Leicester are regarded as a tiny club but even they have spent € 50M last season and € 25M the season before, without selling anyone, pure net spend. Clubs like Villarreal could never afford that. Their net spend in the past 4 years:

€ 10M
€ 0M
€ 10M
- € 50M

€ 30M profit, sold more than they bought. € 75M net spend is a pipe dream for any La Liga club not named Barca and Real. Heck, even Atletico have always sold more than they bought. Just some perspective.

To put the 1998 Kaiserslautern into perspective - their had the following players and they won the Bundesliga over a Bayern team who could field these players:

K'lautern:
Andreas Reinke (GK, 28)
Petr Kouba (GK, 28)
Lajos Szűcs (GK, 23)
Mirko Bitzer (GK, 23)  
Gerry Ehrmann (GK, 38)  
Miroslav Kadlec (Libero, 33)
Axel Roos (CB, 32)
János Hrutka (CB, 22)
Michael Schjönberg (CB, 30)
Harry Koch (CB, 27)
Roger Lutz (CB, 32)    
Andreas Brehme (LB, 36)
Oliver Schäfer (RB, 28)  
Marian Hristov (DM, 23)
Thomas Riedl (DM, 21)  
Pascal Ojigwe (DM, 20)  
Thomas Franck (DM, 26)  
Michael Ballack (CM, 20) - his first club after he left his home club Chemnitz!
Ciriaco Sforza (CM, 27)
Frank Greiner (RM, 30)
Ratinho (RM, 26)
Andreas Buck (RM, 26)
Martin Wagner (LM, 29)  
Marco Reich (LM, 19)    
Pavel Kuka (CF, 28)
Olaf Marschall (CF, 31)
Stefan Ertl (CF, 28)    
Jürgen Rische (CF, 26)  


Bayern:
Oliver Kahn (GK, 28)    
Sven Scheuer (GK, 26)  
Bernd Dreher (GK, 30)
Markus Weinzierl (Libero, 22)
Markus Babbel (CB, 24)  
Samuel Kuffour (CB, 20)
Thomas Helmer (CB, 32)
Dennis Grassow (CB, 25)
Christian Saba CB, 18)
Markus Münch (LB, 24)
Bixente Lizarazu (LB, 27)
Michael Tarnat (LB, 27)
Frank Wiblishauser (LB, 19)
Alexander Bugera (LB, 18)
Christian Nerlinger (DM, 24)
Thomas Strunz (DM, 25)
Lothar Matthäus (DM, 36)
Dietmar Hamann DM, 23)
Thorsten Fink (DM, 29)
David Jarolím (DM, 18)
Frank Gerster (CM, 21)
Mario Basler (RM, 28)
Mehmet Scholl (AM, 26)
Emanuel Bentil (AM, 18)
Stefan Leitl (RA, 19)
Giovane Elber (CF, 24)
Carsten Jancker (CF, 22)
Ruggiero Rizzitelli (CF, 29)
Alexander Zickler (CF, 23)

Sforza

futbol wrote:Meh. Look at the table. Tottenham are 2nd, Arsenal are 3rd. It's like Villarreal (who were playing in 2nd division 3 seasons ago) winning La Liga without Barca, Madrid and Atletico in the league. Atletico 13/14 >>>.

Also to add to that: Leicester are regarded as a tiny club but even they have spent € 50M last season and € 25M the season before, without selling anyone, pure net spend. Clubs like Villarreal could never afford that. Their net spend in the past 4 years:

€ 10M
€ 0M
€ 10M
- € 50M

€ 30M profit, sold more than they bought. € 75M net spend is a pipe dream for any La Liga club not named Barca and Real. Heck, even Atletico have always sold more than they bought. Just some perspective.

you can't blame Leicester for the likes of utd city pool arsenal et al messing up. if all those teams were not in the league (relegated ) then there might be, (might be ) a case, but being in the league and not being consistent isn't Leicester's fault. even the spending pales in comparison to the spending of the regular top teams in that league. atleti's achievement was great, and to me, its a testimony to simeone's ability, not only as a coach, but a manager, running the club....

however, since simeone, they've been solid in the europa league, flirted with the top 4 position and finally won it. simeone had them battle tested, all the while selling star players. as a team they began to learn how to win. Leicester just last season could probably have a stable of unicorns before even dreaming of eliminating one of utd chelsea city arsenal from top 4. leicester's is far greater, and that's no slap to simeone who imo is a great manager; we know how poorly atleti was run before he got there

Anyway Kaiserslautern got a 2nd place, in 1994 .. and when they relegated in '96  they won the German Cup at same year. It looks like a relegation happened in a " black year" , not expected because it wasn't a team so scrub ( like Newca .. Fiorentina '92- '93 for example , relegated with Batistuta and Effenberg ).

I never realized that the always runner up Ballack had won a league title with Kaiserslautern. Ballack is the Rainieri of players

i think its a bit unfair to ballack to say that. the stars just didn't align perfectly for him

futbol wrote:Meh. Look at the table. Tottenham are 2nd, Arsenal are 3rd. It's like Villarreal (who were playing in 2nd division 3 seasons ago) winning La Liga without Barca, Madrid and Atletico in the league. Atletico 13/14 >>>.

Also to add to that: Leicester are regarded as a tiny club but even they have spent € 50M last season and € 25M the season before, without selling anyone, pure net spend. Clubs like Villarreal could never afford that. Their net spend in the past 4 years:

€ 10M
€ 0M
€ 10M
- € 50M

€ 30M profit, sold more than they bought. € 75M net spend is a pipe dream for any La Liga club not named Barca and Real. Heck, even Atletico have always sold more than they bought. Just some perspective.

Do we have to deal with your Liga centric BS even at moments like these ?

Give it a rest ffs .

farfan wrote:

futbol wrote:Meh. Look at the table. Tottenham are 2nd, Arsenal are 3rd. It's like Villarreal (who were playing in 2nd division 3 seasons ago) winning La Liga without Barca, Madrid and Atletico in the league. Atletico 13/14 >>>.

Also to add to that: Leicester are regarded as a tiny club but even they have spent € 50M last season and € 25M the season before, without selling anyone, pure net spend. Clubs like Villarreal could never afford that. Their net spend in the past 4 years:

€ 10M
€ 0M
€ 10M
- € 50M

€ 30M profit, sold more than they bought. € 75M net spend is a pipe dream for any La Liga club not named Barca and Real. Heck, even Atletico have always sold more than they bought. Just some perspective.

Do we have to deal with your Liga centric BS even at moments like these ?

Give it a rest ffs .

Uhm, this thread is literally asking whether this is the biggest achievement in football history so critical opinions are warranted. If you want to chat shit and get banged, there is another "Congrats to Leicester City" Thread.

rincon wrote:I never realized that the always runner up Ballack had won a league title with Kaiserslautern. Ballack is the Rainieri of players

titosantill wrote:i think its a bit unfair to ballack to say that. the stars just didn't align perfectly for him

Ballack won like 5 league titles, Rincon is either ignorant or joking.

btw i don't think this is the greatest achievement in history, but being in the moment, the power of money- coaches who ask for big wages, and sign players for huge fees, as well as most of us being able to follow their run in to the title over the last few months......tough to crown one phenomena as the biggest, best, greatest, especially when there are different contexts etc...but damn it, this is definitely up there. best of the 21st century sounds about right. people can bring up more suggestions from this century (in footy or maybe other sports) so we can asses. at least that way, we have a clear time frame, allowing a bit of consistency with regards finance/economics and things of that nature

futbol wrote:

farfan wrote:

futbol wrote:Meh. Look at the table. Tottenham are 2nd, Arsenal are 3rd. It's like Villarreal (who were playing in 2nd division 3 seasons ago) winning La Liga without Barca, Madrid and Atletico in the league. Atletico 13/14 >>>.

Also to add to that: Leicester are regarded as a tiny club but even they have spent € 50M last season and € 25M the season before, without selling anyone, pure net spend. Clubs like Villarreal could never afford that. Their net spend in the past 4 years:

€ 10M
€ 0M
€ 10M
- € 50M

€ 30M profit, sold more than they bought. € 75M net spend is a pipe dream for any La Liga club not named Barca and Real. Heck, even Atletico have always sold more than they bought. Just some perspective.

Do we have to deal with your Liga centric BS even at moments like these ?

Give it a rest ffs .

Uhm, this thread is literally asking whether this is the biggest achievement in football history so critical opinions are warranted. If you want to chat shit and get banged, there is another "Congrats to Leicester City" Thread.

You're right, the third most successful team in La liga history winning la Liga in 2014 was the biggest achivement in football history .

I don't think it's the greatest either.

When you think about it, Chelsea won last season with 87 points, City the season before with 86, Utd before that with 89. This season, Leicester can only get to 83, assuming they don't ease up now they've won it, which I think is likely. Also, looking at Spain, Atletico and Real are on 86 and 85 points, yet neither are leading. So the way I see it, the quality of the other teams in the EPL is obviously down. Chelsea are obviously rubbish, City gave up when Pep was announced, Arsenal are Arsenal, Man Utd have struggled with LvG and Liverpool only started playing well recently. So having Spurs as their only title rivals made things rather easy for Leicester.

Kudos to them for taking their chance, but I don't see it happening again next season and I don't think it's the greatest achievement purely because all the big teams were woeful this season. It would be a greatest if Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Utd and Liverpool were all on top form throughout the season.

They have lost 3 games all season ffs. It's an amazing achievement for a club of that size, there is no justification for trying to belittle it.

Just so you know the big clubs have been crap for years but nobody took advantage, at some point that's just how it is instead of a one off season where the stars aligned.

Also it's funny Futbol actually believes VilLOLrreal are actually better than Spurs and Arsenal.

Not a chance in hell lol.

sportsczy wrote:Looked it up... Leeds for sure.  They were in the second division in 1989-1990 and were 4th in EPL 1990-1991 and then won it 1991-1992.

I didn't really see much footy then as i was in the US.  But i remember my friends going crazy about it lol.

Stuff like that happened all the time back then, I mean we went from getting promoted to finishing 3rd the following season. For that reason i don't think it compares.