Time to rise? Ranking European football's sleeping giants

Deportivo, Parma, Hamburg. Not just a football hipster's holiday hit-list, but a sample of erstwhile headline acts who have returned to their respective top flights in recent years.

You can throw Leeds United, Nottingham Forest, Schalke and Malaga into the mix too.

But with such footballing royalty back in the big time, where can you find Europe's current sleeping giants? Which once-mighty sides are still snoozing?

We first need to establish some criteria - history, heritage, fanbase, stadium. Clubs with huge potential who currently exist outside the top flight.

Calling a big city home helps, but it is not a deal-maker - sorry to fans of Bristol City and second-tier Russian outfit FC Ufa, where the local population tops one million.

Likewise, some clubs with good-sized stadiums have not made the cut. Bari, whose Stadio San Nicola is the third-largest in Italy and was built for Italia '90, stands out, though some of their calcio colleagues outside Serie A also have grounds of more than 30,000 - Hellas Verona, Messina and Palermo among them.

There's a plethora of ex-Premier League teams with top-flight worthy arenas and storied pasts, while Germany is stacked full of historic clubs with huge homes who arguably deserve a spot - Fortuna Dusseldorf, Wolfsburg, Hannover 96 - but we can't include them all.

A sleeping giant must have experienced some element of former glory and Pro Vercelli are the obvious candidate there, winning seven Italian titles by 1922. But, despite being under new ownership, the third-tier side boast neither the ground nor local population to awaken that historic status any time soon.

The other nuance is, that success cannot have come too recently. West Ham, for example, won a European competition three years ago, Wolves are recent top-flight regulars; likewise Stade de Reims, twice European Cup runners-up, and eight-time French champions Nantes.

Leaving out Steaua Bucharest was another big call. European Cup winners 40 years ago and Romania's most dominant club, they now play in Liga II. But, following a deeply divisive split, many of the traditional fanbase follow top-flight FCSB. So who really owns that legacy?

And there was a case for Boavista, title winners in 2001 but whose existence now hangs by a thread. Facing financial ruin, despite fans' best efforts, they have been ejected from Portugal's professional leagues.

Anyway, let's get on with this. Piped through the matrix above, here are my top 10 European sleeping giants - you can have your say in the comments, too.

League titles: One (2009-10). Domestic cups: One (1985-86). Division: 1.Lig, second tier. Stadium: Centennial Ataturk Stadium (43,361)

Historically dominated by Istanbul's elite teams, Bursaspor snapped that long-running streak by becoming only the second club from outside of the city - and first since Trabzonspor almost three decades earlier - to clinch the Turkish title in 2010.

That meant Champions League nights against Manchester United and Rangers, but in 2024 the Green Crocodiles dropped into the fourth tier for the first time in their history.

Based in a city of about 2.5m people - Bursa sits in the north west, south of Istanbul, near Mount Uludag - and with a unique crocodile-shaped stadium that can house 43,361 fans, Bursaspor have soared up the pyramid since and are looking to return to the Super Lig for the first time since 2019.

League titles: Eight (most recent East German DDR-Oberliga 1989-90). Domestic cups: Seven (most recent 89-90). Division: 2.Bundesliga, second tier. Stadium: Rudolf-Harbig-Stadion (32,085).

Without wanting to turn this into a 2.Bundesliga table, this is the first of four German entries. But Dynamo Dresden, bearing a complex history and situated in the underrepresented east, feel a little different.

Initially enjoying the support of the security forces before their best players were relocated to Berlin, Dynamo became European regulars and lost to Liverpool in the Uefa Cup in 1976 and European Cup two seasons later.

One of East Germany's most dominant clubs, they won eight titles and seven cups and joined the Bundesliga in 1991 following reunification, but they dropped into the third tier four years later amid relegation and mounting debts.

Dynamo, with alumni including Matthias Sammer, have bounced around the regional and lower leagues for many years but now sit in 2.Bundesliga.

Based in a city of more than half a million people, their potential is underpinned by a large, passionate fanbase who averaged over 30,000 for home games in the second tier last term.