Sampdoria, Bordeaux, Real Zaragoza: Why Europe Calls Them Sleeping Giants

A "sleeping giant" in football is a club with a large historical trophy haul, a significant fan base and stadium capacity that no longer matches its current division. BBC Sport built a list of ten such clubs across Europe, and three of them — Italy's Sampdoria, France's Bordeaux and Spain's Real Zaragoza — illustrate how far a once-title-winning side can fall.

How the ranking was built

According to the BBC's criteria, as reported by Ozarab Media and Occasional Digest, clubs were judged on historical success and heritage, fan base size, stadium capacity, and current status outside the top flight of their domestic pyramid. The analysis also required that the club's major success not have come too recently, separating genuine long-term decline from a temporary slump.

In the published order, Sampdoria topped the list, according to Yahoo Sports, with Saint-Étienne second, Real Zaragoza third, Bordeaux fifth, and clubs such as FC Nuremberg, Hertha BSC, Sheffield Wednesday, Kaiserslautern, Dynamo Dresden and Bursaspor filling out the rest of the top ten, per Ozarab Media's summary of the piece.

Sampdoria: from the 1991 Scudetto to Serie C

Sampdoria won their only Serie A title in 1990-91, a season built around strikers Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Mancini. The Genoa club had already lifted the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1990 and reached the European Cup final in 1991-92, losing to Barcelona, according to Yahoo Sports' account of the BBC ranking.

Sampdoria have not won a trophy since the 1994 Coppa Italia, their fourth in that competition since 1985, Yahoo Sports reported. The club dropped out of Serie A in 2023 amid financial problems, and in May 2025 was relegated to Serie C — the third tier — for the first time in its 78-year history, after a goalless draw with Juve Stabia, ESPN reported. The team had gone through several coaches that season, including 2006 World Cup winner Andrea Pirlo, before Alberico Evani failed to prevent the drop.

Bordeaux: six Ligue 1 titles, now in the sixth tier

Bordeaux have won the French championship six times, and their academy produced World Cup winners Zinédine Zidane, Bixente Lizarazu and Christophe Dugarry, according to Al Jazeera. The club lost its professional status after a 2024 judicial restructuring and could not cover roughly 10 million euros ($11.6m) needed to meet debt obligations for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 financial years.

France's financial watchdog, the DNCG, relegated Bordeaux to Régional 1 — the sixth tier of French football — for 2026-27, Al Jazeera reported. The club was then sold for a symbolic one euro to the US investment group Park Bench, which took on the remaining debt. Under the restructuring plan reported by Al Jazeera, Bordeaux's debt was cut from 26 million to 13 million euros, repayable over 12 years, and new president Dominique Delport said "rebuilding can now begin."

Real Zaragoza: Nayim's goal and a new La Romareda

Real Zaragoza's best-known European moment came on 10 May 1995, when midfielder Nayim scored from inside his own half in extra time to beat Arsenal 2-1 in the Cup Winners' Cup final in Paris, according to Wikipedia's account of the match. The club has also won the Copa del Rey six times, most recently in 2003-04.

Zaragoza were relegated to the Primera Federación — Spain's third tier — for the first time since 1949 after the 2025-26 season, Wikipedia noted, and now play in Group 2 of that division. The club's home, La Romareda, is being rebuilt: architecture firm IDOM's design presented via ArchDaily puts the new stadium's capacity at 42,500 seats, while Ozarab Media's summary of the BBC piece cites a figure of 43,114, with organisers hoping to host matches if the 2030 World Cup is staged jointly by Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

Side by side

The gap between past silverware and current standing is why all three appear on the BBC's list: each still draws sizeable crowds and owns or is building a stadium far bigger than its division would normally require.