A Brief History Of European Dominance (A-J)

With Manchester United chalking up their eleventh title under Sir Alex Ferguson, you may be tempted to say that Manchester United is the most dominant domestic force in Europe over that specific time frame. Manchester United have won eleven titles in the richest league in the world, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a dynasty anywhere, in any sport, that would surpass their achievement.

That said, there are 53 member nations of UEFA, each one with it’s own separate football league. That got me thinking: has any team in Europe won more titles than Manchester United since Sir Alex Ferguson took over in November of 1986?

There was only one way to find out. Today, I’m presenting the European nations starting with letters “A” through “J”; tomorrow I’ll do “K’ through “Z”. Read on to find out who the best teams are in the Sir Alex Ferguson era in every league in Europe.

• Albanian Superliga: KF Tirana have won the league nine times since Sir Alex took over at Manchester United, and they’re on top of the table by one point going into the final week of the season.
• Armenian Premier League: FC Pyunik have won the league nine times since ’86, including the last eight titles. They’re four points clear at the top, but the season doesn’t end until November so there’s still a lot left to play for.
• Austrian Football Bundesliga: FK Austria Wien have won the league five times since 1986; they’d be tied with SV Salzburg if that club hadn’t dissolved and become FC Red Bull Salzburg, removing all the previous club’s records from
• Azerbaijan Premier League: Neftchi Baku PFC’s won this league (or whatever the top flight equivalent’s been, since the Premier League only started in 2007) five times since 1986.
• Belarusian Premier League: Dinamo Minsk, with six wins, only just edges out current titleholders and tableleaders FC BATE, who have five wins.
• Belgium’s Jupiler Pro League: FC Anderlecht comes close to Manchester United/Sir Alex Ferguson level dominance; they’ve won the league ten times since the 1986-87 season. That’s not including this season, which still has to be decided; since they’re tied on points and wins with Standard Liege, there will be a two-legged playoff for the league winner that starts on Thursday; should they win that, they’d be tied with Manchester United for the number of domestic title wins in our time period.
• Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina: This league’s only been around since 1998; before that, football was divided into three different leagues based on ethnicity. So while FK Željezničar Sarajevo has only won the league three times since ’86, they’ve still won 27% of the titles available to them.
• Bulgarian A Professional Football Group: PFC Levski Sofia is the only team to never be relegated from the top flight of Bulgarian football; they’ve also won the league eight times in our timeframe.
• T- Com Croatian First Football League: Here’s a league that can rival Fergie’s dominance. In spite of only being in existence since 1992, Dinamo Zagreb have won Croatia’s league eleven times. I’m sure that this league isn’t as competitive as the English Premier League, but they also probably don’t have the caliber of players available. They’ve also had a lot of turnover at the manager position; 28 managers have been on the hot seat since 1992.
• Cypriot First Division: In the timeframe we’re looking at, both APOEL FC and Anorthosis Famagusta have won this league seven times. Anorthosis, you may remember, was the first Cypriot team to ever get to the Champions League group stage earlier this year, beating Greek powerhouse Olympiakos to do so.
• Czech Republic’s Gambrinus liga: Sparta Prague is the first team to surpass Manchester United’s dominance so far on our list. Dating back to 1987, they’ve won the top tier of Czech football 16 times; that covers six titles under the old Czechoslovak League and ten more titles under the Gambrinus liga. All combined, they’ve won 19 Czech titles in their history.
• Denmark’s SAS Ligaen: A number of teams have won this league (in whatever version it’s been played) three times; frankly, though, this whole league is confusing. There used to be two different competitions with two different winners a year (a spring league and winter league), and there are tons of teams involved. This actually might be the most wide open league in Europe.
• England’s Barclays Premier League: If the premise of this article didn’t tip you off, Manchester United’s won this league eleven times since Sir Alex Ferguson took over at…Manchester United. Interestingly, though, in that time frame seven different teams (Everton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Leeds United, Blackburn, Manchester United, and Chelsea) have won the league; it’s easy to forget that the last few years of the First Division were relatively wide open.
• Estonia’s Meistriliiga: The league’s only been around since 1991, and it isn’t fully professional; four of the ten teams in the top tier are considered semi-pro. FC Flora Tallinn’s won this league seven times.
• FYR Macedonian Prva Liga: This is another league that wasn’t around before the 1992-93 season. Macedonia used to be part of the Yugoslav republic, and some of these teams played under the Yugoslav league; when Yugoslavia broke up, three new leagues had to be formed. One of the main reasons, frankly, for England’s success is probably the fact that they avoided the turmoil associated with political upheavals across Europe in the early to mid 1990s. Regardless of that, FK Vardar’s won this league five times in our time frame.
• Faroe Islands Premier League: HB Tórshavn’s won this seven times, so they’re the big boys of the Faroese league. Incidentally, this season the Faroe Islands send their top four teams to European competition (one to the Champions League, two to the UEFA Cup, and one to the Intertoto Cup); for an archipelago with a population of 48,500, that just seems like a lot.
• Finland’s Veikkausliiga: The homeland of Jussi Jääskeläinen, Sami Hyypiä, and (most notably) Kai Haaskivi shares a lot with Denmark in that they really don’t care about soccer that much; that said, HJK Helsinki and FC Haka have won this league five times apiece during our window of analysis. Incidentally, this whole league is sponsored by the Finnish national gambling agency Veikkaus.
• France’s Ligue 1: Olympique Lyonnais has won the last seven titles, making them the best performers in France over the last 22 years.
• Georgia’s Umaglesi Liga: FC Dinamo Tbilisi and Manchester United are rarely spoken of in the same light, but they share one big stat: they’ve both won their domestic league eleven times since Ferguson took over at United. Actually, in Dinamo Tbilisi’s case, it’s since 1990; they didn’t have a league to play in before that.
• Germany’s Fußball-Bundesliga: Ah, Germany. When Fergie first took over United back in November of 1986, Germany was still separated into East and West Germany…and Bayern Munich was still winning titles. Bayern are the second club on our list to surpass United’s dominance in their domestic league; they’ve won the Bundesliga 12 times and have a chance at adding their thirteenth title if Wolfsburg fails to get a point next weekend.
• Super League Greece: In Sir Alex’s first season, Olympiakos won the Greek Super League. They wouldn’t do so again until the 1996-97 season, but then they’d repeat every year (save 2003-04); that includes this season. That’s 13 wins, and an absolutely dominant performance over the last decade…and it’s two more than Manchester United over that time period.
• Hungary’s Soproni Liga: This league’s actually well-established and fairly wide open. Seven different teams have won it in the last 22 years, but no team has been absolutely dominant. In fact, two teams – Budapest Honvéd FC and Ferencváros FC – have won it four times over that span. One team, though, edges them out by just one title win: MTK Hungária FC. This league’s not done yet, but none of these three teams is in the running to win.
• Iceland’s Úrvalsdeild: Next year this will be the Norwegian Colaship; Pepsi’s sponsorship money means it will be called the “Pepsi-deildin”. Íþróttabandalag Akraness won the league seven times, but they’ve not been able to finish on the top of the table since 2001; the current table isn’t really important because the league just kicked off a week ago.
• Italy’s Serie A: Inter’s been the big man in town for the last four years, but AC Milan’s got seven Scudetto wins…a good haul, but nowhere near Manchester United’s level of dominance.

That’s the end of the first part. We’ll kick things off tomorrow with Kazakhstan.