Euro Footy - TV Tropes

Europe's top national men's football teams are Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, England, Portugal, Italy and France, and they tend to be consistently among the favourites for both European and Worldwide tournaments. They also tend to usually win them (particularly Germany, Italy and more recently Spain), though exceptions can happen, such as Greece's shock victory in the 2004 European Championships.

The top-ranked leagues, as of the end of the 2022–23 season^*, are (in order):

1. The English Premier League
2. Spain's La Liga
3. Germany's Bundesliga
4. Italy's Serie A
5. France's Ligue 1
6. The Dutch Eredivisie
7. Portugal's Primeira Liga
8. The Belgian Pro League
9. The Scottish Premiership
10. The Austrian Bundesliga

This list includes all countries whose top-level champions are guaranteed automatic places in the Champions League league phase. Starting in 2024–25, the top two countries in the UEFA rankings for the immediately previous season get an additional place in the CL league phase. For 2024–25, these spots went to Italy and Germany.

The major European football tournaments are:

UEFA European Championship

Founded: 1958
Reigning Champions: Spain (4th)
Most Championships: Spain (4)

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A quadrennial competition for all European national teams, popularly known as "Euro (year)". Spain have won it 4 times, Germany thrice, France and Italy twice, and once each for Portugal, Greece, Denmark, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and the USSR. Spain are the reigning champions.

UEFA Nations League

Founded: 2018
Reigning Champions: Spain (1st)
Most Championships: France, Portugal, and Spain (1 each)

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A biennial competition for all European national teams, it was designed to replace international friendlies within the FIFA calendar. It's split into four leagues (A, B, C, D), with teams playing within their leagues in a group phase but all (nominally) having the potential to reach the final phase. Promotion and relegation between the leagues exists, and the Nations League is intimately linked to Euro qualifying and more loosely to UEFA World Cup qualifying. Spain is the reigning champion.

The competition later spawned a distaff counterpart in the UEFA Women's Nations League (see below), a transatlantic equivalent in the CONCACAF Nations League, and an example of both in the CONCACAF W Gold Cup.

UEFA Champions League

Founded: 1955 (as European Cup)
Reigning Champions: Real Madrid (15th)
Most Championships: Real Madrid (15)

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Annual competition for the top European clubs; which is neither a league, nor is it (since 1997) for national champions only. The tournament runs from August to May. Real Madrid – the 2024 champions – have 15 wins; AC Milan 7; Bayern Munich and Liverpool 6 each; FC Barcelona (aka "Barça") 5; and Ajax 4.

UEFA Europa League

Founded: 1971 (as UEFA Cup)
Reigning Champions: Atalanta (1st)
Most Championships: Sevilla (7)

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A secondary competition for those European clubs not quite good enough for the Champions League. Before a format change in 2024–25, it also featured clubs that finished in third place in the group stages of the Champions League. It was formerly called the UEFA Cup. Sevilla has the most wins, with 7^note , whilst Juventus, Internazionale, Liverpool and Atlético Madrid are behind them with 3 each. The reigning champion is Atalanta, who spoiled Bayer Leverkusen's bid for an unbeaten season across all competitions in the 2024 final. Since 2015/16, the winner has received a Champions League place if it didn't otherwise qualify. Starting with the 2023–24 EL, the winner enters the Champions League in the league phase.

UEFA Conference League

Founded: 2021 (as UEFA Europa Conference League)
Reigning Champions: Olympiacos (1st)
Most Championships: Roma, West Ham United, & Olympiacos (1 each)

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A third-level club competition introduced in 2021–22 as the Europa Conference League, with "Europa" being dropped after 2023–24. This competition is intended specifically to give teams from lower-ranking associations a better chance to compete for a trophy, although all UEFA associations are eligible to enter at least one side. The Conference League champion automatically enters the following season's Europa League in the league phase unless it qualifies for the Champions League by its domestic placement.

That said, the new competition received a lukewarm reaction from several of the associations it was ostensibly designed to benefit; under the new format, all associations below the top 15 in the UEFA rankings are completely locked out of the Europa League (unless they drop into it from Champions League qualifying). Three teams that advanced from EL qualifying to the group stage in 2019–20^note  are from countries that were unable to directly send any teams to the EL in 2021–22. The first four finalists came from the so-called "big leagues", with Roma winning in 2022 and West Ham United in 2023.

The 2024 edition was the first to be won by a team outside the "big leagues", with Greece's Olympiacos defeating Fiorentina.

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54 domestic leagues send teams to the (men's) Champions League and Europa League.^note  The better a league is, the more teams qualify and the later in the competition they enter (though this is only partially true for the Conference League).

The establishment of the Conference League bled off many teams that formerly entered the Europa League; no association will be able to enter more sides in European competition than its (current) ranking would have allowed prior to the 2021–22 season.^* The top five leagues in UEFA rankings only get to send one team to the Conference League,^* while those ranked 6–15 and 51–55 get two and leagues ranked 16–50 get three.

All three competitions are divided into three phases. Formats and access lists are current for the ongoing 2024–25 edition, which introduced major changes to the competition format.

• Qualification: For the Champions League and Conference League, three qualification rounds, then a playoff round. Starting in 2021–22, the Europa League, which previously had the same number of qualifying rounds as the Champions League, was reduced to one qualification round and one playoff round, since most of the teams that had competed in EL qualifying in past seasons were moved into the Conference League. In all competitions, each round is home/away with the aggregate score of the two legs deciding who qualifies. In case of a tie, the match proceeds directly to 30 minutes of extra time, followed by a penalty shootout if the teams are still tied. Before UEFA abolished the away goals rule in its club competitions in advance of the 2021–22 season, that rule was implemented at the end of regular time in the second leg, as well as the end of extra time.
• League Phase: Each team plays single matches against eight other teams, evenly split between home and away matches, but all 36 teams are ranked in a single table. A win counts 3 points, a draw 1. In case of ties, goal difference and head-to-head records are taken into account. Teams cannot play against those from their own association, and can have no more than two opponents from a single association. The 2024–25 season is the first for the "League Phase" (previously, it was the "Group Phase"); the first in which the League Phase for all three competitions has 36 teams instead of 32; and the first in which the league phase has a single-table format (previously, the teams were divided into groups of 4 that played home and away against one another).
  • Champions League: Champions League title holder, Europa League title holder^*, top 10 champions, top 6 runners-up, top 5 thirds, top 4 fourths, fifths from the top 2 leagues of the immediately previous season, 7 playoff round winners (5 champions, 2 others).
  • Europa League: 11 Champions League playoff losers, 12 Europa League playoff winners, and 12 teams from higher-ranking federations that qualify through league play or domestic cups. From the 2022–23 tournament forward, the reigning Conference League champion enters here unless it has qualified for the Champions League via domestic performance; if its domestic performance would have placed it in the EL qualifying rounds, it gets promoted to the league phase.^note  Before 2021–22, this stage involved 12 groups and 48 teams, and in 2022–23 and 2023–24 it involved 8 groups and 32 teams.
  • Conference League: 12 Europa League playoff losers, 24 Conference League playoff winners.
• Knockout Phase: Each round is home/away again, with the aggregate (total) goals scored as the basis for elimination.
  • Starting in 2024–25, the top eight teams in the league phase enter the knockout phase of all three competitions. The next 16 teams enter a two-legged playoff, with the winners joining the top eight. The bottom eight teams, as well as the playoff losers, are eliminated from European play. The first knockout round is seeded so that top-eight teams face playoff winners.
  • Teams from the same association^* cannot be drawn against each other until the quarter-finals.
• Final: One game held at a predetermined location. This is to maintain a neutral atmosphere for the two teams (although this does mean that a team could end up hosting at its own ground; this, however, has only happened four times, the last time being 2012). Seating is guaranteed equally for the fans of the two competing clubs in case that the club owning the stadium reaches the final.

For the 2019–20 edition only, the knockout stage used a different format due to COVID-19. Both the CL and EL were halted in mid-March; some of the CL round of 16 ties had been completed, but none of the corresponding ties in the EL were complete, and two in the EL had yet to start. Both competitions resumed in August. The CL played its remaining second legs, as did the EL; however, the two EL ties that had yet to start were converted to one-off fixtures, and also moved to Germany (where the rest of that tournament would be played). UEFA then moved the CL final from Istanbul to Lisbon and the EL final from Gdańsk to Cologne (both cities that lost 2020 finals got them for 2021^note ). For the CL, UEFA created a "bubble" in Lisbon to house the remainder of the tournament; the EL was moved to Germany, with matches played under "bubble"-style conditions around the country. All remaining knockout matches in both competitions were played as one-off matches.

With the change in format for all three competitions in 2024–25, clubs eliminated from the league phase of the Champions League and Europa League, as well as losers in the playoff that precedes the knockout round, no longer drop into the next-lower competition. This means that it's now impossible for a club to defend a Europa League title, and effectively impossible to defend a Conference League title.^note 

The top-ranked women's leagues, as of the end of the 2022–23 season^*, are (in order):

1. France's Division 1 Féminine
2. Germany's Frauen-Bundesliga
3. Spain's Liga F
4. England's Women's Super League
5. Italy's Serie A
6. Sweden's Damallsvenskan
7. The Czech Women's First League
8. The Danish Women's League
9. Portugal's Campeonato Nacional Feminino
10. The Dutch Vrouwen Eredivisie

UEFA has a number of equivalents to their mens' leagues in women's football, including:

UEFA Women's Championship

Founded: 1982
Reigning Champions: England (1st)
Most Championships: Germany (8)

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A quadrennial championship for national teams first held in 1984. So far it has been won eight times by (West) Germany, twice by Norway, and once each by England, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The most recent championship in 2022 was won by England.

UEFA Women's Nations League

Founded: 2022 (first season: 2023–24)
Reigning Champions: Spain (1st)
Most Championships: Spain (1)

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The women's version of the Nations League was founded in 2022, and operates under a similar format to that of the men's version, except it has only three leagues instead of four. Depending on the year, the Women's Nations League is part of the qualifying process for the Women's World Cup, Women's Euro, or Olympics. Spain is the inaugural champion.

UEFA Women's Champions League

Founded: 2001 (as UEFA Women's Cup)
Reigning Champions: Barcelona (3rd)
Most Championships: Lyon (8)

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The women's equivalent to the (men's) Champions League. Began as the UEFA Women's Cup in the 2001–02 season, and renamed as the Women's Champions League starting in 2009–10. Originally, the competition was solely for the winners of each country's top women's competition. From its reorganization as the Champions League through 2020–21, the runners-up of the top eight nations in women's football also competed. Starting in 2021–22, the runners-up of the top 16 nations enter the competition, plus the third-place teams from the top 6 nations. Like the men's Champions League, the women's version runs from August to May. The 2019 final was the first whose host city was awarded separately from that of the men's Champions League. Lyon have 8 wins (6 of them in a 7-season stretch from 2016–22), Eintracht Frankfurt^* have 4, current champ Barça has 3 (all in the last four years—2021, 2023, 2024), and Turbine Potsdam, Umeå, and Wolfsburg each have 2.

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The 2019–20 Women's CL was also disrupted by COVID-19, though the women had completed their round of 16 when things were halted. The tournament resumed in its own "bubble" in Spain with the quarterfinals, hosted by the Basque cities of Bilbao and San Sebastián.^note  Also paralleling the men's version, all remaining ties were one-off matches, with San Sebastián hosting the final.
Before 2021–22, the Women's Champions League had a slightly different format from the men's tournament, with a qualifying round consisting of four-team groups, followed by a 32-team knockout phase with all matches except the final being two-legged home/away ties.

The Women's CL uses a format similar to the one the men abandoned after the 2023–24 edition:

• Qualification: A "champions path" and a "league path", each consisting of one qualification round followed by a playoff round. (Most teams will go through the champions path, while those from higher-ranked leagues go through the league path.) The qualification round consists of four-team knockout tournaments at a single site, each with semifinals, a third-place match, and a final. The winners of the first round advance to the playoffs against higher-ranked teams in home-and-away ties scored on aggregate, with seven teams advancing from the champions path and five from the league path. This phase is explicitly designed so that at least 10 different associations will be represented in the group phase.
• Group Phase: Added for the first time in 2021–22, under the same conditions as the men's Champions League then used. Unlike the men's version, the women still use a group-based format for the Champions League proper, and thus still use the phrase "Group Phase". The 12 survivors of the qualification phase are joined by the current title holder and the reigning champions from the top three women's leagues. (If the title holder is the champion of one of the top three leagues, the champion of the fourth-ranked league enters here.) They're divided into groups of 4 teams, playing home and away against one another, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the knockout phase.
• Knockout Phase: The group phase survivors advance to a bracket in which group winners are drawn against runners-up from different groups in the quarterfinals, playing the usual home/away ties scored on aggregate. Teams from the same league cannot be drawn together until the quarterfinals.
• Final: One game held at a predetermined location, under the same conditions as for the men's final.

For decades, there was no equivalent to the Europa League, much less the Conference League, in the women's game. But then came the...

UEFA Women's Europa Cup

Founded: 2023, first edition in 2025–26
Reigning Champions: None yet
Most Championships: TBD

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UEFA finally announced a women's equivalent to the (men's) Europa League in December 2023, with the first edition to start in September 2025. It will resurrect the pure knockout format, with no group phase, originally used for the (men's) European Cup and UEFA Cup. All rounds, including the final, will be played as home-and-away ties. In all, 44 clubs will compete, with 13 directly qualifying by league placement and the rest dropping down from the Women's Champions League:

• First round: 6 domestic third-place teams (leagues ranked 8–13), 7 domestic runners-up (leagues ranked 18–24), 11 third-place teams from second-round WCL mini-tournaments.
• Second round: Winners of first-round ties, plus 11 runners-up from second-round WCL mini-tournaments and 9 WCL third-round losers.

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England men's national team

Everyone seems to know the score, they've seen it all before, they just know, they're so sure, that England's gonna throw it away, gonna blow it away, but I know they can play…

Nicknames: The Three Lions
Uniform: White shirts, navy shorts^note 
Current Head Coach: Thomas Tuchel
Current Captain: Harry Kane
Home stadium: Wembley Stadium, North London^note 
FIFA Code: ENG
Trophies Won: 1966 World Cup; 54 British Home Championships (including 20 shared); 1986, 1988, & 1989 Rous Cups

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For more information on the England national team (and those of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland), see British Footy Teams

England, also nicknamed The Three Lions (they're sometimes known as The Lions, but in Britain this is usually reserved for Rugby's British and Irish Lions), play in all whites (though traditionally with navy shorts) and have won the FIFA World Cup once, as hosts, in 1966 in their famous alternate red kit (which they consequently tend to wear on special occasions), reached the semi finals in Italy in 1990, and have also reached the semis of the European Championship in 1968 and 1996 (the latter at home). In recent decades, they've generally been known as the member of the big guns most likely to fail spectacularly at a major tournament, to the point of general national diminishing of expectations/outright apathy - though as of 2024, that diminishing of expectations has been met with an unfancied England reaching the World Cup semifinals in 2018, a stage they had last reached in the World Cup in 1990 and in any major tournament in 1996, followed by a run to the Euro 2020/21 final, losing there on penalties to Italy, and to the Euro 2024, losing out narrowly to a virtuoso Spain side.

infamous for being perennial underachievers failing to translate talent into tournament success, while trumpeting how good they are. For this reason, the other big teams historically saw them as Miles Gloriosus and they usually crashed out on penalties in and around the quarter-finals, finally ignominiously exiting the 2014 World Cup at the bottom of their group. Following the Southgate era, they're now viewed as a side not to be taken lightly, having finally figured out tournaments - more on that below. Bogey teams include Germany and to a lesser extent, Portugal thanks to the 2000 and 2004 Euros and the 2006 World Cup. Not even the tabloids bothered tipping them for success at tournaments any more. Instead, the hope going into the 2018 World Cup was that the inevitable failure won't be too humiliating and that reaching the Quarter-Finals, once a mark of failure, would now be considered a respectable achievement. Boy were they in for a surprise - again, more on that below.

Despite the many travails of the national team, England consistently produces excellent players, most notably the so-called 'Golden Generation' of Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole and David Seaman that reigned from 1998 to 2010 (though Gerrard captained England to 2014 and Rooney remained available for selection), and are usually to be found in the top 10 teams in the world. The likes of wing forward Raheem Sterling, full-back Trent Alexander-Arnold, midfielder Jude Bellingham, forwards Phil Foden and Cole Palmer, and striker and current captain Harry 'Hurricane' Kane, among others, have proved that the production line of England talent isn't stopping any time soon - a point punctuated by the astonishing successes of the youth teams. However, the rule of thumb was not to expect the senior team to do it at a tournament. Because they couldn't. Or wouldn't. No one's entirely sure which, or indeed why. However, most, including ex-players, consistently cite an inability by players from top teams to lay aside club rivalries and play as a team, instead operating in cliques, meaning that what happens is that instead of a team, you have 11 highly talented individuals running around the pitch and doing their own thing.

This changed thanks to a mass overhaul of the England youth system, after the disaster of Euro 2016, when England made the knockout stage... and immediately crashed out to Iceland, a team that had never before qualified to a major tournament. The British media went nuclear on England, immediately branding the loss the worst in the country's history;^note  and wildly unpopular manager Roy 'Woy' Hodgson (berated for his unimaginative and outdated tactics, misuse of players, and striking resemblance to an owl) saved the FA the trouble of firing him by resigning during the post-match press conference.

His first replacement, Sam 'Big Sam' Allardyce, was a streetwise manager with a reputation for old-fashioned football and surprisingly cutting edge use of sports technology, who had harboured ambitions to manage England all his life. He took charge of one game, then promptly did the very un-streetwise thing of getting caught by a newspaper sting casually explaining how to get around FA transfer rules. He was promptly fired and replaced with Gareth Southgate, an England mainstay as a player, who missed that penalty in 1996 that put England out, and as a manager, taking charge of the U-21's after a reasonably successful spell at then Premier League Middlesborough. The general attitude was one of world-weary cynicism and suspicion. However, England's youth bore fruit, and Southgate preferred to trust in younger players (many of which he helped bring through). He ultimately rebuilt England into a technically skilled and physically fit team that could both pass its way around most other international teams, or run them ragged, providing a lethal threat off set-pieces. This team, nicknamed 'the Young Lions' for their youth, was generally considered to be one for the future.

Cue a colossal shock when England promptly reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup with relative ease, breaking the so-called 'penalty curse' on the way. And then in Euro 2020, delayed to 2021 by COVID-19, they knocked their nemesis Germany out in the round of 16, before stomping Ukraine 4-0 in the last eight, and beating fan favourites Denmark in extra time in the semis to reach the final at Wembley. Heartbreakingly, they lost 3-2 on penalties to an old and wily Italy side. However, their youth has been seen as reason for optimism, and for England fans to still be dreaming - especially after they waltzed through their group at the World Cup, composed entirely of teams in the world top 20. They stuffed Iran 6-2 and Wales 3-0 (sandwiched by a 0-0 draw with a US team on the top of its game and an England team that looked faintly sluggish), then thumped African Champions Senegal 3-0 in the Round of 16, setting up a blockbuster quarter-final with France.

They had another good stretch in the 2024 European Championship, if a less than exciting one as they steadily marched to the final despite concerns about their habit of conceding the first goal and delaying substitutions… until they fell 2–1 to a virtuoso Spain side in a hard-fought final where the Spanish winner was onside by about half a kneecap and some desperate goalmouth scrambling was required to prevent England from going level and taking the match to extra time. Two days later, Southgate shocked virtually everyone by announcing his resignation. While his contract was set to expire at the end of the year, the FA reportedly wanted him to stay on through the 2026 World Cup — however, while this was a shock, it wasn't entirely a surprise, as Southgate had hinted a couple of times that if England didn't win at his fourth crack at a major international tournament (not counting the Nations League), he'd go. He was replaced in the interim by Lee Carsley, also former England Under-21 boss, whose first squad indicated that he would follow Southgate's trend and put a soft reboot on the squad by promoting young players rather than just playing it safe. His eventual replacement was Thomas Tuchel, who managed Chelsea to the Champions League crown in 2021 and has also managed Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain, and most recently Bayern Munich.

Premier League

Founded: 1992
Number of Teams: 20
Domestic Cups: The FA Cup; EFL Cup; FA Community Shield
Reigning Champions: Liverpool (2nd)
Most Championships: Manchester United (13)

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For more information on the Premier League and its teams, see English Premier League for information on the league itself and The Football Association for information on the teams that have competed in it.

English club football has some of the strongest teams on the continent, and the Premier League is often claimed as the best in the world. While this is hotly disputed, it is one of the more fiercely competitive leagues, and it is agreed to be the fastest paced and most relentlessly physical, with a little more leeway given to Unnecessary Roughness by referees. Liverpool claimed the 2024–25 title with four matches to spare, ending the four-year reign of Manchester City. City clinched the first and third titles in the streak (2020–21 and 2022–23) with three matches left, but the 2021–22 and 2023–24 seasons were quite different, with City pushed to the very end, respectively by Liverpool and Arsenal. City also holds records for most points earned, wins, away wins, goals, consecutive league wins, goal difference, and winning points margin in the Premier League era (1992–present), with these feats accomplished by its 2017–18 team. The two seasons in between were also eventful. In 2018–19, City was again pushed to the title by Liverpool, with the title coming down to the final matchday and City winning by 1 point (98–97), with third place a further 25 points behind. Then in 2019–20, the first of two seasons heavily affected by COVID-19, Liverpool waltzed to the title, clinching it with a record 7 matches to spare and getting 99 points, missing out on Manchester City's record point total from the year before by only 1 point - and that despite finishing the season on cruise control. The 2015–16 season saw perhaps the biggest surprise in football history when Leicester City, tipped for relegation and listed at 5,000-to-1 odds to win the title prior to the season... beat those odds.

At a direct counterpoint to the national team's somewhat puzzling lack of success - and, until the 2018 World Cup, abject failure - the domestic league is considered by most to be the best (and richest) league in the world (though Spain's La Liga and Germany's Bundesliga are challenging that crown). Following a fallow few years in Europe, as noted above, 'best' has been usually amended to 'most competitive', with up to six teams, the so-called 'Big Six', seriously vying for the title, and in the process, the top 4 places, earning qualification to the Champions League. It is frequently speculated that these two things are connected. However, following 2018/19, where Manchester City and Liverpool engaged in a battle for the title that came down to a single point on the final day, while their nearest rivals were a further 25 points behind, the two racking up the four highest points tallies in English top division history in the space of four years (100 by City in 17/18, 99 by Liverpool in 19/20, 98 by City in 18/19, and 97 by Liverpool, also in 18/19), a similar title race (if with a slightly less dramatic gulf between the top two and everyone) in 2021/22, and the two appearing in 4 of the last 5 Champions League finals, it's been argued that 'the Big Six' are now becoming 'the Big Two and the Not Quite as Big Four'.

As of 2017-18, this fallow period seems to have passed: Liverpool made it to the final, but lost to 3-1 Real Madrid in somewhat suspicious circumstances ^note  Nevertheless, the English sides didn't look back, and provided at least one finalist in every year that followed aside from 2020. In 2019, England even managed the until then unheard-of feat of both the Champions and Europa League finals being contested by teams all from the same country (Liverpool vs. Spurs on Champions, Chelsea vs. Arsenal on Europa), with Liverpool and Chelsea emerging victorious. The 2021 Champions League final, as noted above, was also an all-English affair, with Chelsea defeating Man City, and in 2022, Liverpool reached their third Champions League final in five years, setting up a grudge match with Real Madrid won by Real. In 2023, two Premiership sides won European finals, with Manchester City completing "the treble" with its Champions League win and West Ham winning the Conference League.

England women's national team

Nickname: The Lionesses
Kit: Same as men's
Current Manager: Sarina Wiegman
Current Captain: Leah Williamson
Home Stadium: various
Trophies Won: Euro 2022, 2023 Women's Finalissima^note 
Best World Cup Finish: Runner-up, 2023

While a solidly competitive side for years, the Lionesses truly emerged as a European power in the 2010s, capping off their rise with a win over Germany in the final of Women's Euro 2022 at Wembley Stadium in London, following it up with a win over Brazil in the first Women's Finalissima in 2023 and a narrow loss to Spain in that year's World Cup final. Another notable England win over Germany came in the third-place match of the 2015 Women's World Cup, after missing out on a place in the final when one of the defenders was forced to intercept a dangerous cross at full stretch before it got to an opposition striker and knocked it into her own net. If nothing else, this proved that they are very definitely an England team. However, their determination, style, willingness to play their hearts out and obvious desire to win won them a lot of fans, if only because of the contrast with (at that point) the chronically underachieving men's team, which has frequently and justly been accused of laziness, incoherence, and apathy. Indeed, it was the Lionesses who finally broke England's 56-year duck by winning UEFA Women's 2022 with an extra-time win against – who else? – Germany. Unlike England's men, who are contractually obligated to play virtually all of their matches at Wembley, the women play all over the country.

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Women's Super League

Founded: 2010; first season in 2011
Number of Teams: 12
Domestic Cups: Women's FA Cup, FA Women's League Cup
Reigning Champions: Chelsea (8th)
Most Championships: Chelsea (8)^note 

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The Women's Super League has been climbing the ranks of European (and world) women's leagues in recent years, thanks mainly to large investments by big men's clubs. This has helped bring in a fair number of international stars to supplement the country's burgeoning talent pipeline. In a case of Early-Installment Weirdness, the WSL started out as a summer league before switching to the standard English autumn-to-spring calendar in 2017–18. Ahead of the 2024–25 season, The FA ceded administration of the WSL to the newly formed Women's Professional Leagues Limited, an independent club-owned entity. This move followed a 2023 government recommendation that the WSL become self-governing. The top clubs on the women's side are:

• Arsenal — Won the first two Super League titles, but has won only one since. The Gunners do have the record for most Women's FA Cup wins, with 14, and are also the only English side to have won the Women's Champions League, doing so in 2007. Also of note is that from 2024–25, Arsenal plays all of its women's home games at the men's home of Emirates Stadium; the women sold out the stadium three times in 2023–24, setting a WSL attendance record each time.
• Chelsea — While the Blues have yet to make a major splash in Europe, apart from a runner-up Champions League finish in 2021, they're the dominant domestic side now, with their record 8 WSL titles including an ongoing streak of 6. They play select games at the men's home of Stamford Bridge, but mostly play at Kingsmeadow in the London borough of Kingston upon Thames, originally home to the non-league club Kingstonian but most notable as the first home of AFC Wimbledon.

French men's national team

Nicknames: Les Bleus (The Blues)
Kit: Red shirt with yellow accents, blue shorts and black socks
Current Head Coach: Didier Deschamps
Current Captain: Kylian Mbappé
Home stadium: Stade de France, Saint-Denis^note 
FIFA Code: FRA
Trophies Won: 1998 & 2018 World Cups; 1984 & 2000 UEFA European Championships; 2021 UEFA Nations League; 1985 CONMEBOL–UEFA Cup of Champions; 2001 & 2003 UEFA Confederations Cup; 1984 Olympic Gold Medalists

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France play in blue shirt, white shorts and red socks and have won the FIFA World Cup twice, in 1998 as hosts and in 2018, and also won the European Championship in 1984 and 2000. Since the 1990s a significant proportion of the national team has been black or Arab-descended, a fact credited with increasing multicultural awareness in the nation as a whole. Other nation's fans have suggested uncharitably (but not necessarily inaccurately) that the French national team cherry picks the best players from its former colonies and greases their path to French citizenship.

Ligue 1

Established: 1932 (as National)
Number of Teams: 18
Domestic Cups: Coupe de France; Trophée des Champions
Reigning Champions: Paris Saint-German (13th)
Most Championships: Paris Saint-German (13)

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Established in 1932 as the National, Ligue 1 was known for much of its life as Division 1, only adopting its current name in 2002.

French club football has a wide range of strong teams, with a large number of clubs having historically won domestic honours. However, French clubs have rarely challenged seriously internationally, with Olympique de Marseille's 1993 Champions League win the only occasion on which a French club has won the top European honour, a victory that came even under rather controversial circumstances.

FC Girondins de Bordeaux

Founded: 1881
Nickname: Bordeaux; Les Girondins (The Girondins); le club au Scapulaire (the Scapular club); les Marines et Blanc (the Navy and Whites)
Current Owner: Gérard López
Current Manager: Albert Riera
Current Captain: ???
Current Stadium: Matmut Atlantique^note 
2023/24 Position: 12th in Ligue 2
Ligue 1 Titles: 6; 1949–50, 1983–84, 1984–85, 1986–87, 1998–99, 2008–09
Coupes de France: 4; 1940–41, 1985–86, 1986–87, 2012–13
European Trophies: 1995 Intertoto Cup

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From southwestern France, Les Girondins were the team that broke Lyon's domestic title streak by winning the league in 2008–09. They also made the UEFA Cup final in 1996, losing out to Bayern Munich. Their biggest rivals are Nantes and Toulouse FC.

In the early 2020s, they suffered financial trouble, going into administration in 2021, the same year they were relegated to Ligue 2. They nearly were forcibly relegated again to the Championnat National due to their insolvency, but the team appealed the decision and were reinstated to Ligue 2.

Lille OSC

Founded: 1944
Nickname: LOSC; Lille; Les Dogues (The Mastiffs); Les Nordistes (The Northmen); Les Lillois (The Lillois); La Machine de Guerre (The War Machine)
Current Owners: Merlyn Partners SCSp
Current Manager: Paulo Fonseca
Current Captain: Benjamin André
Current Stadium: Stade Pierre-Mauroy^note 
2023/24 Position: 4th in Ligue 1
Ligue 1 Titles: 4; 1945–46, 1953–54, 2010–11, 2020–21
Coupes de France: 6; 1945–46, 1946–47, 1947–48, 1952–53, 1954–55, 2010–11
European Trophies: 2004 Intertoto Cup

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Created in 1944 from the merger of two teams in Lille in northern France (including inaugural Division 1 champion Olympique Lillois), Lille have a substantial trophy shelf, with four Ligue 1 titles and six Coupes de France. Their biggest rivals are fellow northerners RC Lens, with the rivalry having a class war undertone, as Lens is historically blue-collar while Lille is historically more middle-class and cosmopolitan.

Olympique Lyonnais

Founded: 1950
Nickname: Lyon; OL; Les Gones (The Kids); L'OL
Current Owner: John Textor
Current Manager: Pierre Sage
Current Captain: Alexandre Lacazette
Current Stadium: Parc Olympique Lyonnais^note 
2023/24 Position: 6th in Ligue 1
Ligue 1 Titles: 7; 2001–02, 2002–03, 2003–04, 2004–05, 2005–06, 2006–07, 2007–08
Coupes de France: 4; 1963–64, 1966–67, 1972–73, 2007–08, 2011–12
European Trophies: 1997 Intertoto Cup

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Monopolised the title from 2001/02 to 2007/08. Historically their biggest rivals were Saint Étienne, but with their rise to prominence in the new millennium, their biggest rivals now are Bordeaux, Paris Saint-Germain, Lille, and especially Marseille.

Olympique de Marseille

Founded: 1899
Nickname: Marseille; OM; Les Phocéens (The Phocaeans); Les Olympiens (The Olympians); Les Minots (The Boys from Marseille)
Current Owner: Frank McCourt
Current Manager: vacant
Current Captain: Valentin Rongier
Current Stadium: Stade Vélodrome^note 
2023/24 Position: 8th in Ligue 1
Ligue 1 Titles: 9; 1936–37, 1947–48, 1970–71, 1971–72, 1988–89, 1989–90, 1990–91, 1991–92, 2009–10
Coupes de France: 10; 1923–24, 1925–26, 1926–27, 1934–35, 1937–38, 1942–43, 1968–69, 1971–72, 1975–76, 1988–89
European Trophies: 1992–93 Champions League; 1998–99, 2003–04, & 2017–18 UEFA Cups/Europa Cups; 2005 Intertoto Cup

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Their 1993 Champions League win remains the only occasion on which a French club has won the top European honour. However, this victory that came under controversial circumstances as it was revealed that Marseille's then-president, Bernard Tapie, had bribed players in lower-table side Valenciennes to deliberately underperform in their match against Marseille so that Marseille's players would be fresher for the Champions League final. As a result, Marseille's 1992–93 Division 1 title was revoked and offered to second-place finishers PSG, but PSG declined it, so the 1992–93 season went down in the books as having no winner. Tapie and the players he bribed would all be convicted of corruption, and Marseille was forcibly relegated and banned from European competition for the following season. Their Champions League win, however, was not revoked.

The team's successes improved in the 2000s under new ownership, though they wouldn't win another Ligue 1 until 2009–10. They would also make the 2018 Europa League final, where they fell 3–0 to Atlético Madrid. Their current majority owner is American businessman Frank McCourt, who had previously owned the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Their biggest rivals are Paris Saint-German, with the teams having a long-standing antipathy.

AS Monaco

Founded: 1924
Nickname: ASM; Les Rouge et Blanc (The Red and Whites); Les Monégasques (The Monégasques); Le Rocher (The Rock)
Current Owner: Dmitry Rybolovlev (67% share), The House of Grimaldi (33% share)
Current Manager: Adi Hütter
Current Captain: Wissam Ben Yedder
Current Stadium: Stade Louis II^note 
2023/24 Position: 2nd in Ligue 1
Ligue 1 Titles: 8; 1960–61, 1962–63, 1977–78, 1981–82, 1987–88, 1996–97, 1999–2000, 2016–17
Coupes de France: 5; 1959–60, 1962–63, 1979–80, 1984–85, 1990–91

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Play in the French football system, despite being being Monégasque (what with Monaco lacking a domestic league). AS Monaco can boast eight French Ligue 1 titles, five Coupes de France, and a Champions League final appearance in 2004, where they fell 3–0 to FC Porto.

Since two-thirds of the club were bought out by Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev in 2011, Monaco's become a strong contender in recent years, winning their most recent Ligue 1 in 2016–17 and attaining a number of second and third place finishes in other years.

Montpellier HSC

Founded: 1919
Nickname: MHSC; La Paillade
Current Owner: Laurent Nicollin
Current Manager: Michel Der Zakarian
Current Captain: Téji Savanier
Current Stadium: Stade de la Mosson^note 
2023/24 Position: 12th in Ligue 1
Ligue 1 Titles: 1; 2011–12
Coupes de France: 2; 1928—29, 1989–90
European Trophies: 1999 Intertoto Cup

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From southern France, MHSC are probably best known for their sole Ligue 1 win in 2011/12, which they achieved despite heavy odds against them.

AS Nancy Lorraine

Founded: 1967
Nickname: Nancy; Les Chardons (The Thistles)
Current Owners: Chien Lee & Krishen Sud
Current Manager: vacant
Current Captain: Pablo Correa
Current Stadium: Stade Marcel Picot^note 
2023/24 Position: 6th in Championnat National (Divison 3)
Ligue 1 Titles: 4; 1950–51, 1951–52, 1955–56, 1958–59
Coupes de France: 1; 1977–78

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From northeastern France, their sole claim to fame was in 1978 when they won the Coupe de France.

FC Nantes

Founded: 1943
Nickname: FCN; Nantes; La Maison Jaune (The Yellow House); Les Canaris (The Canaries)
Current Owner: Waldemar Kita
Current Manager: Antoine Kombouaré
Current Captain: Pedro Chirivella
Current Stadium: Stade de la Beaujoire^note 
2023/24 Position: 14th in Ligue 1
Ligue 1 Titles: 8; 1964–65, 1965–66, 1972–73, 1976–77, 1979–80, 1982–83, 1994–95, 2000–01
Coupes de France: 4; 1978–79, 1998–99, 1999–2000, 2021–22

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Winners of 8 league titles and four Coupes de France, Nantes hail from from the northwest and were also Champions League semifinalists in 1996, where they fell to Juventus. Also well-known for their youth academy, who have produced a number of well-known French players.

OGC Nice

Founded: 1904
Nickname: Les Aiglons (The Eaglets); Le Gym (The Gym)
Current Owners: Ineos Group Ltd.
Current Manager: vacant
Current Captain: Dante Bonfim
Current Stadium: Allianz Riviera^note 
2023/24 Position: 5th in Ligue 1
Ligue 1 Titles: 4; 1950–51, 1951–52, 1955–56, 1958–59
Coupes de France: 3; 1951–52, 1953–54, 1996–97

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Hailing from the French Riviera, Nice's heyday was in the 1950s, with four domestic league titles and two of their three Coupes de France. It was during this time that Nice became one of the first French clubs to integrate international players in their team.

Their luck since then has varied, with a number of relegations, though they've also managed a number of strong finishes.

Paris Saint-German

Founded: 1970
Nickname: PSG; Les Parisiens (The Parisians); Les Rouge-et-Bleu (The Red-and-Blues)
Current Owner: Nasser Al-Khelaifi (majority, through Qatar Sports Investments)
Current Manager: Luis Enrique
Current Captain: Marquinhos
Current Stadium: Parc des Princes^note 
2023/24 Position: 1st in Ligue 1
Ligue 1 Titles: 13^note 
Coupes de France: 15^note 
European Trophies: 1995–96 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup; 2001 Intertoto Cup

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Formed in 1970 from the merger of two clubs (though one of them, Paris FC, would break away again), PSG are a relative newcomer to Ligue 1. This didn't stop them from being consistently competitive through the '80s and '90s.

But it wasn't until the 2010s they they became a dynastic team, thanks in large part to large influxes of cash from their new Qatari owners, and they embarked on a tear throughout the league, racking up four Ligue 1 titles in a row from 2012 to 2016. AS Monaco broke this streak in 2017, but PSG took back its throne in 2017/18 with five matches to spare, and repeated the following season, also with five matches to spare. PSG was leading the table in 2019/20 when the COVID-19 pandemic halted and ultimately ended the season, and was awarded the title. The 2020–21 season saw PSG pipped to the title by Lille, but they returned to their recent dominance the following year, cruising to the title that drew them level with Saint-Étienne for the most in French history, and then breaking that tie in 2022–23 and repeating the next two years. With 15 wins to their name, PSG also boast the most Coupes de France.

Despite these domestic victories, PSG have yet convert them into success in European competition. While they won the 1996 Cup Winners' Cup and are hoping to bring the Champions League to the Héxagone once again, they failed to advance past the quarter-finals under their Qatari ownership until 2020, when they narrowly lost in the final to Bayern Munich.

PSG are now France's most popular team, with celebrity fans including former President Nicholas Sarkozy and Patrick Dempsey and a celebrity owner in Kevin Durant, part of a group that purchased a minority stake in August 2024. Their biggest rivals have historically been Marseille – the two of them being the most dominant teams in the league before Lyon's turn in the spotlight in the 2000s.

AS Saint-Étienne

Founded: 1919
Nickname: ASSE; Sainté; Les Verts (The Greens); Les Stéphanois (The Stéphanois)
Current Owners: Cesse Foot (44%), Croissance Foot (44%), & Association ASSE (12%)
Current Manager: Olivier Dall'Oglio
Current Captain: ???
Current Stadium: Stade Geoffroy-Guichard^note 
2023/24 Position: 3rd in Ligue 2 (promoted)
Ligue 1 Titles: 10; 1956–57, 1963–64, 1966–67, 1967–68, 1968–69, 1969–70, 1973–74, 1974–75, 1975–76, 1980–81
Coupes de France: 6; 1961–62, 1967–68, 1969–70, 1973–74, 1974–75, 1976–77

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Lyon's regional rival, ASSE were historically the league's most successful team, with their ten Ligue 1 titles – mostly in the '60s and '70s - setting a record that would stand until 2023, when PSG claimed an eleventh win. They also made the 1976 European Cup final, where they lost to Bayern Munich.

Their recent history hasn't been so great, as they went back-and-forth between Ligues 1 and 2 a number of times, with them securing promotion back to Ligue 2 in 2024.

Stade de Reims

Founded: 1910
Nickname: Les rouges et blancs (The Red and Whites)
Current President: Jean-Pierre Caillot
Current Manager: Samba Diawara (caretaker)
Current Captain: Yunis Abdelhamid
Current Stadium: Stade Auguste-Delaune^note 
2023/24 Position: 9th in Ligue 1
Ligue 1 Titles: 6; 1948–49, 1952–53, 1954–55, 1957–58, 1959–60, 1961–62
Coupes de France: 2; 1949–50, 1957–58

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This northeastern team supplied many players for the French team of the 1950s and was twice runner-up of the European Cup, in 1956 and 1959, losing both to Real Madrid. Promoted back to Ligue 1 at the end of the 2017-18 season and have remained there ever since.

French Women's Football

Lyon's women's section has won the Women's Champions League eight times, including six times in seven years (2016–2020, 2022). Because of this, they were considered by pretty much everyone as the outright most dominant force of women's club football in Europe until Barça supplanted them in this decade, but are still a formidable side. This streak was interrupted by another women's section of a Ligue 1 club, PSG, who took them out in the 2021 quarterfinals before losing in the semifinals to Barça (which won it all).

Germany men's national team

Nicknames: DFB-Team (DFB Team); Nationalelf (National Eleven); DFB-Elf (DFB Eleven); Die Mannschaft (The Team)
Kit: White shirts (sometimes with highlights in the flag's black/red/gold colors) and socks and black shorts)
Current Head Coach: Julian Nagelsmann
Current Captain: Joshua Kimmich
Home stadium: various
FIFA Code: GER
Trophies Won: 1954, 1974, 1990, & 2014 World Cups; 1972, 1980, & 1996 UEFA European Championships; 1976 Olympic Gold Medalists; 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup

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The current national team is regarded as the continuation of the old West German team which won three World Cups (in 1954, 1974 and 1990). In 2014 they won their fourth overall World Cup title and their first as a unified nation. If Italy is the most successful World Cup team in terms of victories, Germany beats them statistically by a long shot, thanks to their consistency: out of their 19 appearances, they reached the final 8 times, and were semifinalists 6 other times. Germany have a reputation for being a tough team to beat, even when they're having an off day, and are a particular bogey team for England. It is perhaps for this reason that it was an English footballer (specifically, Gary Lineker), who remarked that "Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for ninety minutes and at the end, the Germans win." That said, the most recent match ended in a stunning comeback win for England in Berlin, having been 2-0 down before winning 3-2. Have a strong rivalry with the Dutch based partly on World War II history and partly on the German win over the Dutch in 1974. Their distinctive style of football, called gegenpressing (literally meaning counter-press in German), has been popularized by managers like Jürgen Klopp, Jupp Heynckes and Thomas Tuchel, and could be best described as a more offensively oriented counterpart to Italian catenaccio due to their shared reliance on coordination between the three lines of play; unlike catenaccio, though, gegenpressing features an extremely high defensive line (sometimes as high as the midfield!) to allow for more players on the attacking phase. Gegenpressing teams tend to be glass cannons, conceding a lot of goals while scoring for fun, but more defensively pressing teams do exist as well. Their own bogey team is Italy, with Germany's only two wins in competitive matches against them having come on penalties in the Euro 2016 quarterfinals and a 5-2 thrashing in the 2022 Nations League against the Azzurri's B-team.

However, disaster struck at the 2018 World Cup, which Germany entered as one of the favourites and defending champions. They got what seemed to be a relatively easy group, with Mexico, Sweden, and South Korea - decent enough teams, but ones that the Germany sides of old would roll straight over. Stuffed with players from the best club sides in Europe and veterans of the 2014 World Cup, it was generally thought that they'd do exactly that. Then they lost their opening match to Mexico, who ran rings around them, making them look old, sluggish, and outdated. After that, they narrowly and controversially beat Sweden thanks to a last minute free-kick, before going into their final group game requiring a win (or a draw, if Sweden didn't beat Mexico). At the beginning of the match, it was still possible for South Korea to advance with a win, making this match an all to play for situation. Since South Korea was seen as a much weaker team, losing both of their group matches, it was thought that Germany would manage. They didn't, losing 2-0, and exiting at the bottom of the group, going out at the group stage for the first time since 1938. Worse still, they were relegated from the inaugural Nations League after failing to beat France or Netherlands, losing a 2-goal lead with 5 minutes left against the Dutch for them to win the group, though the Germans had been confirmed as last place before this game.

Bundesliga

Founded: 1963
Number of Teams: 18
Domestic Cups: DFB-Pokal; DFL-Supercup
Reigning Champions: Bayern Munich (33rd)
Most Championships: Bayern Munich (33)

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The Bundesliga, sometimes known as Buli for short, has become well-known for its "fans first" policy, most famously the "50+1 rule", which dictates that club members hold the majority of voting rights, protecting clubs from outside investors.^Exceptions Thanks to this fan-oriented approach, the Bundesliga enjoys the highest average attendance out of all football leagues in the world, and the second-highest average attendance in world sports leagues, only behind the NFL.

West Germany had no national league until 1963, a legacy of German soccer being organized in regional federations that went back to Imperial Germany. Bayern Munich won three European Cups in the mid-1970s, and three Champions Leagues in 2001, 2013, and 2020, and Dortmund (1997) and Hamburg (1983) have each won the top European title once, but other than that German clubs have been relatively lacklustre in that competition (the best performances by any other teams were runner-ups by Borussia Mönchengladbach in 1977 against Liverpool, Bayer Leverkusen in 2002 against Real Madrid, and Borussia Dortmund in 2013 against... Bayern). Werder Bremen, Borussia Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt, Hamburg, Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Bayern Munich, and Schalke have won the now-defunct European Cup Winners' Cup and/or the UEFA Cup (both of which were predecessors to the Europa League), and Eintracht won the Europa League in 2022. 1. FC Magdeburg is the only club of the former GDR league to have won a European competition, the Cup Winners' Cup in 1974, the annus mirabilis of East German football, which was also the only time they qualified for the World Cup (coincidentally held in their Western neighbors, whom they actually defeated in the first group stage).

Notable German teams include:

Werder Bremen

Founded: 1899
Nicknames: Werder; Bremen; Die Werderaner (The River Islanders); Die Grün-Weißen (The Green-Whites)
Current Manager: Ole Werner
Current Captain: Marco Friedl
Current Stadium: Weserstadion^note 
2023/24 Position: 9th in 1. Bundesliga
Bundesliga Titles: 4; 1964–65, 1987–88, 1992–93, 2003–04
DFB-Pokals: 6; 1960–61, 1990–91, 1993–94, 1998–99, 2003–04, 2008–09
European Trophies: 1991–92 European Cup Winners' Cup

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A team with periodic flashes of brilliance, including a domestic double in 2004–04. They were relegated in 2021, but scored promotion back to the top flight the next year. Their biggest rivals are fellow northerners Hamburger SV, with lesser rivalries with Bayern and Schalke 04.

Borussia Dortmund

Founded: 1909
Nicknames: BVB; Die Borussen (The Prussians); Die Schwarzgelben (The Black and Yellow)
Current Manager: Niko Kovač
Current Captain: Emre Can
Current Stadium: Westfalenstadion^note 
2023/24 Position: 5th in 1. Bundesliga
Bundesliga Titles: 8; 1956, 1957, 1963, 1994–95, 1995–96, 2001–02, 2010–11, 2011–12
DFB-Pokals: 5; 1964–65, 1988–89, 2011–12, 2016–17, 2020–21
European Trophies: 1996–97 Champions League; 1965–66 European Cup Winners' Cup
Worldwide Trophies: 1997 Intercontinental Cup

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An Ensemble Dark Horse, Borussia Dortmund can boast the highest average attendance of any football team in the world. They have rivalries with fellow Ruhr area team Schalke 04 and with Bayern Munich.

Their golden age was in the 1990s, when they secured two Bundesliga titles and a Champions League. They also had an era of prominence under manager Jürgen Klopp until 2015, when he departed for Liverpool. More recently, they made the 2024 Champions League final, falling 2–0 to Real Madrid.

Eintracht Frankfurt

Founded: 1899
Nicknames: SGE (Sportgemeinde Eintracht); Die Adler (The Eagles); Launische Diva (Moody Diva); Schlappekicker (Slipper Kickers); Die Diva vom Main (The Diva From the Main)
Current Manager: Dino Toppmöller
Current Captain: Kevin Trapp
Current Stadium: Waldstadion^note 
2023/24 Position: 6th in 1. Bundesliga
DFB-Pokals: 5; 1973–74, 1974–75, 1980–81, 1987–88, 2017–18
European Trophies: 1959–60 European Cup; 1979–80 & 2021–22 UEFA Cups/Europa Leagues

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A charter member of the Bundesliga, Eintracht Frankfurt had previously won one German Championship in 1959. Their best years were from 1973 to 1981, when they won a number of domestic and European trophies. Their biggest rivals are Kickers Offenbach from across the Main River. In 2020, they amicably merged with the city's main women's side; see the Frauen-Bundesliga section for more.

Hamburger SV

Founded: 1887
Nicknames: Die Rothosen (The Red Shorts)
Current Manager: Steffen Baumgart
Current Captain: Sebastian Schonlau
Current Stadium: Volksparkstadion^note 
2023/24 Position: 4th in 2. Bundesliga
Bundesliga Titles: 3; 1978–79, 1981–82, 1982–83
DFB-Pokals: 3; 1962–63, 1975–76, 1986–87
European Trophies: 1982–83 European Cup; 1976–77 European Cup Winners' Cup; 2005 & 2007 Intertoto Cups

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One of Germany's oldest clubs, HSV could boast being the only German team to never be relegated from the top flight… until they got relegated in 2018. Since then, they've been in the 2. Bundesliga, narrowly missing out on promotion to the top flight a number of times. Their glory days were in the late '70s and early '80s, when they won three domestic titles and one European Cup.

HSV's biggest rivals are fellow Hamburgians FC St. Pauli and fellow North Germans Werder Bremen.

RB Leipzig

Founded: 2009
Nicknames: Leipzig; Die Roten Bullen (The Red Bulls)
Current Owner: Red Bull GmbH
Current Manager: Marco Rose
Current Captain: Willi Orbán
Current Stadium: Red Bull Arena^note 
2023/24 Position: 4th in 1. Bundesliga
DFB-Pokals: 2; 2021–22, 2022–23

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A newly formed up-and-comer, but a highly controversial one due to the fact that they're a de facto corporate team who used Loophole Abuse to get around the 50+1 Rule.

"RB" stands for Rasenballsport (literally translates to "Grass-ball-sport"), but also stands for Red Bull. As in the famous Austrian energy drink company that also owns Red Bull Salzburg in their native Austria, New York Red Bulls in the United States, and Red Bull Bragantino in Brazil. The team was born in 2009 after Red Bull bought out and rebranded local fifth division side SSV Markanstadt. The price for a club membership is unusually high (around 800 euros for a yearly membership compared to Bayern's 60 for example), and the club's upper echelons can reject applications without notice or reason. Circumventing the 50+1 Rule has earned RB Leipzig a substantial hatedom from other teams' supporters, who call RB Leipzig a corporate "plastic club" and a symptom of football's commercialization, and the team's been the subject of numerous demonstrations by opponents to their ownership.

Despite their hatedom, the team enjoys a loyal following, primarily because they're the only successful team to come out of the former German Democratic Republic, as the east has been underrepresented in the Bundesliga since reunification. Some of their supporters have also shown that they are not unwilling to criticize Red Bull when they feel like it.

Furthermore, the controversy surrounding their ownership has not been an obstacle to their playing, as they've seen a meteoric ascent to German football stardom, reaching the Bundesliga for the 2016-17 season and placing second there, just eight years from their formation. Not to mention reaching the Champions League semifinals three years after that. In addition, they won two DFB-Pokals in a row in 2022 and 2023.

Bayer 04 Leverkusen

Founded: 1904
Nicknames: Bayer Leverkusen; Leverkusen; Die Werkself (The Company's Eleven); Schwarzroten (The Black and Reds)
Current Owner: Bayer AG
Current Manager: Xabi Alonso
Current Captain: Lukas Hradecky
Current Stadium: BayArena^note 
2023/24 Position: 1st in 1. Bundesliga
Bundesliga Titles: 1; 2023–24
DFB-Pokals: 2; 1992–93, 2023–24
European Trophies: 1987–88 Europa League

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Current reigning Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal champions.

Started in 1904 by workers of German pharmaceutical multinational Bayer AG in the North Rhine-Westphalia town of Leverkusen, Bayer Leverkusen is one of two major clubs that are permitted to go against the 50+1 rule thanks to a grandfather clause, being owned by Bayer. For much of their history, Leverkusen have had small successes but always seemed to fall short of true glory due to being overshadowed by other teams.

This changed in a big way in 2023–24, when Leverkusen claimed their first-ever Bundesliga title, with the first unbeaten league season in Buli history, and setting a European record for consecutive unbeaten competitive games (51). They followed it up by lifting the DFB-Pokal that season to claim the domestic double. However, Bayer fell short of a treble when Atalanta smoked them 3–0 in the Europa League final.

Leverkusen is known for prioritizing a clean, family-friendly atmosphere at BayArena. Though this, as well as their corporate ownership, has led to other teams' fans calling Leverkusen – along with Leipzig as mentioned above – a soulless "plastic club" without real fans or footballing traditions. This has prompted Leverkusen fans to try and start their own traditions that emphasize the team's industrial origins.

Borussia Mönchengladbach

Founded: 1900
Nicknames: Die Fohlen (The Foals); Die Borussen (The Prussians)
Current Manager: Gerardo Seoane
Current Captain: Jonas Omlin
Current Stadium: Borussia-Park^note 
2023/24 Position: 14th in 1. Bundesliga
Bundesliga Titles: 5; 1969–70, 1970–71, 1974–75, 1975–76, 1976–77
DFB-Pokals: 3; 1959–60, 1972–73, 1994–95
European Trophies: 1974–75 & 1978–79 UEFA Cups

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A top-flight team from North Rhine-Westphalia, Borussia Mönchengladbach's golden age was in the 1970s, with five domestic titles, two UEFA Cups, and reaching one European Cup final in 1977, where they lost to Liverpool. Their biggest beef is with regional rival FC Köln, but they also have one-sided rivaries with Bayern and Borussia Dortmund (the latter is mostly over their similar names).

Bayern Munich

Founded: 1900
Nicknames: Bayern; Die Bayern (The Bavarians); Stern des Südens (Star of the South); Die Roten (The Reds); FC Hollywood
Current Manager: Vincent Kompany
Current Captain: Manuel Neuer
Current Stadium: Allianz Arena^note 
2023/24 Position: 3rd in 1. Bundesliga
Bundesliga Titles: 33^note  (plus a pre-Bundesliga German Football Championship title in 1932)
DFB-Pokals: 20^note 
European Trophies: 1973–74, 1974–75, 1975–76, 2000–01, 2012–13, & 2019–20 European Cups/Champions Leagues; 1995–96; 1966–67 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup; 2013 & 2020 UEFA Super Cups
Worldwide Trophies: 2013 & 2020 FIFA Club World Cups; 1976 & 2001 Intercontinental Cups

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The Ace of German football, Bayern pretty much dominate the league, having won 12 titles in the last 13 seasons, interrupted only by Bayer Leverkusen's dream 2023–24 season. They and Barcelona are the only two teams to have managed a continental treble. As with most hegemonic teams (like Real Madrid, Man United, the New York Yankees, or the Dallas Cowboys), this means Bayern has a substantial hatedom – their habit of hoovering up other teams' star players doesn't help.

They also rate as among the clubs with the highest membership in the world, and it's not unusual for Allianz Arena to be sold out. Bayern's ultras scene is notable for certain groups taking stances against right-wing extremism, racism, antisemitism, and homophobia (which is curious as Munich is the capital of one of Germany's more conservative states).

Those Wacky Nazis weren't too fond of Bayern, as at the time they took power, the team's well-liked club president Kurt Landauer and manager Richard Dombi were both Jewish. Landauer would be forced to resign and Dombi would flee the country to Feyenoord as the Nazis consolidated power, and many of Landauer's successors weren't seen as loyal enough to the regime, so Nazis regarded Bayern as a "Judenklub." Landauer would end up assuming his old position again for a time after World War II ended.

Bayern has traditionally had rivalries with neighbouring 1860 Munich (who used to share a stadium with them), fellow Bavarian team Nürnberg, and Kaiserslautern. They also have rivalries with teams that challenge their dominance of the Bundesliga, like Borussia Dortmund, Schalke 04, and Werder Bremen, and with teams that rival them in European competition like Manchester United, AC Milan, and especially Real Madrid.

Schalke 04

Founded: 1904
Nicknames: S04; Die Königsblauen (The Royal Blues); Die Knappen (The Miners)
Current Manager: Karel Geraerts
Current Captain: Simon Terodde
Current Stadium: Veltins-Arena^note 
2023/24 Position: 10th in 2. Bundesliga
DFB-Pokals: 5; 1937, 1971–72, 2000–01, 2001–02, 2010–11
European Trophies: 1996–97 UEFA Cup; 2003, & 2004 Intertoto Cups

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From Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia, near the Dutch border, S04 were relegated after a shambolic 2020/21 season fraught with issues both on and off the pitch. They promptly returned to the top flight a year later, only to immediately suffer the drop yet again.

S04 has surprisingly large membership, in fact rating as among the largest in the world. Their biggest rivals are Ruhr region neighbours Borussia Dortmund.

FC St. Pauli

Founded: 1910
Nicknames: Kiezkicker (Neighbourhood Kickers); Freibeuter der Liga (League Buccaneers)
Current Manager: Alexander Blessin
Current Captain: Jackson Irvine
Current Stadium: Millerntor-Stadion^note 
2023/24 Position: 1st in 2. Bundesliga (promoted)

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From the Hamburg neighbourhood of St. Pauli, this team has become a major Ensemble Dark Horse. Despite being far less successful on the pitch than cross-town rivals Hamburger SV, they've become very well-known in footy fandom for their fanbase's punk ethos and general openness to everyone. They also boast the highest number of female fans in German football.

After winning the 2024 2. Bundesliga title, St. Pauli will play in the Buli for the first time in over a decade (the last time they were in the Buli, they went straight back down). The manager who led them to promotion, the 31-year-old Fabian Hürzeler, left in the offseason for Brighton, becoming the Premier League's youngest-ever permanent manager.

VfB Stuttgart

Founded: 1893
Nicknames: VfB; Die Roten (The Reds); Die Schwaben (The Swabians)
Current Manager: Sebastian Hoeneß
Current Captain: Alakan Karazor
Current Stadium: MHPArena^note 
2023/24 Position: 2nd in 1. Bundesliga
Bundesliga Titles: 3; 1983–84, 1991–92, 2006–07
DFB-Pokals: 3; 1953–54, 1957–58, 1996–97
European Trophies: 1982–83 European Cup; 1976–77 European Cup Winners' Cup; 2000 & 2002 Intertoto Cups

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A team of varying fortunes, having had everything from Champions League berths to brief relegations. Recently they've had a resurgence, with their 2023/24 team being called a surprise for the season as they made it to second place, surpassing giants like Bayern.

Traditionally VfB's biggest beefs were with crosstown rivals Stuttgarter Kickers, though the teams haven't had much contact since the latter team was relegated in the early '90s. These days they have a rivalry with Karlsruher and a one-sided rivalry with Bayern.

Their stadium also boasts two milestones in the national team's history—it hosted West Germany's first-ever match in 1950, and the first home match for reunified Germany in 1990.^note 

VfL Wolfsburg

Founded: 1945
Nicknames: Die Wölfe (The Wolves); Die Weißgrünen (The White and Greens)
Current Owner: Volkswagen AG
Current Manager: Ralph Hasenhüttl
Current Captain: Maximilian Arnold
Current Stadium: Volkswagen Arena^note 
2023/24 Position: 12th in 1. Bundesliga
Bundesliga Titles: 1; 2008–09
DFB-Pokals: 1; 2014–15

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Like Bayer Leverkusen, Wolfsburg are corporate-owned (being owned by local carmaker Volkswagen) and aren't subject to the 50+1 rule due to a grandfather clause. Wolfsburg is a relative newcomer to the Bundesliga, only making the top flight in 1997. They have one Bundesliga title and one DFB-Pokal to their name from 2008–09 and 2014–15 respectively, but have yet to meet with any significant success in European competition—unlike their women's side (see the Frauen-Bundesliga section below).

Germany women's national team

Nicknames: DFB-Frauenteam, DFB-Frauen^note 
Kit: All-white (with highlights in the flag's black/red/gold colors)
Current Manager: Christian Wück
Current Captain: Alexandra Popp
Home Stadium: various
Trophies Won: 2003 & 2007 Women's World Cups; Euro 1989, 1991, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009 & 2013; 2016 Olympic gold medalists

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One of the first European nations to take women's football seriously, Germany became the dominant European side in the 1990s and the biggest rival to the US women for international dominance in the 2000s, winning back-to-back World Cups in that decade. The 2003 World Cup win made Germany the first nation with both men's and women's trophies, and the 2007 World Cup was won without giving up a goal—the only time this has happened in either the men's or women's edition. Their dominance has somewhat faded as more European countries have invested heavily in the women's game, but they're still a very formidable side (though had an embarrassing group-stage exit in the 2023 World Cup).

Frauen-Bundesliga

Founded: 1990
Number of Teams: 12; expanding to 14 in 2025–26
Domestic Cups: Frauen-DFB-Pokal; Frauen-DFB-Supercup
Reigning Champions: Bayern Munich (7th)^note 
Most Championships: Bayern Munich, 1. FFC Frankfurt/Eintracht Frankfurt, & VfL Wolfsburg (7 each)

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.

Although still officially a semi-professional league, the Frauen-Bundesliga has been one of Europe's strongest leagues for a long time, with most of its top teams now being women's sections of big men's clubs. These include:

• Bayern Munich — Not quite as dominant as their men, but have four of the last five domestic titles (2021, 2023–25), drawing them level with Eintracht and Wolfsburg for the most in Frauen-Buli history. However, they haven't translated this to success in the Women's Champions League; their best finish to date is the 2021 semifinals.
• Eintracht Frankfurt — Before a friendly merger with the men's Buli club in 2020, it was known as 1. FFC Frankfurt.^note  Frankfurt was one of the dominant sides in the 2000s, and as Eintracht still haa a share of the record for most Frauen-Buli titles with 7, though its last one was in 2008. They also won the Women's Champions League four times as Frankfurt (2002, 2006, 2008, 2015).
• VfL Wolfsburg — Replaced Frankfurt as the main power of the 2010s, and now the main rival to Bayern for league supremacy, with a joint record 7 titles. They also have two Women's Champions League titles (2013, 2014) and four other WCL final appearances.
• Turbine Potsdam — Frankfurt's main rival for league honors in the 2000s, this former East German team has 6 league titles and two Women's Champions League titles in 2005 and 2010. Now have a de facto partnership with nearby men's side Hertha Berlin (now in the 2. Buli). They were relegated in 2023, but won the 2. Bundesliga title in 2024 to go right back up.

One other German side has won the Women's Champions League, but does not currently play in either of the country's national leagues.

• MSV Duisburg: Successor to the defunct FCR 2001 Duisburg, which won the 2009 Women's Champions League but went under in 2013. In the first part of the 2020s, the successor club yo-yoed between the top two flights, being promoted or relegated in each season from 2022 to 2024. After their drop in 2024, they pulled out of the 2. Frauen-Buli and now play in the Regionalliga West. The Duisburg men's section had just been relegated from the 3. Liga to the Regionalliga, leading to financial losses that forced the women out of the national leagues.

Italian national team

Nicknames: Gli Azzurri (The Blues)
Uniform: Blue shirt and socks and white shorts
Current Head Coach: Luciano Spalletti
Current Captain: Ciro Immobile
Home stadium: various
FIFA Code: ITA
Trophies Won: 1934, 1938, 1982, & 2006 FIFA World Cups; Euros 1968 & 2020; 1936 Olympic Gold Medallists

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Italy are (as of 2014 together with Germany) the most successful European team in the World Cup, their 2006 triumph being their fourth - although their 1934 win on home soil remains controversial, thanks to Benito Mussolini's attempts to influence referees. They are also famous for bringing some of the best managers in the game - with names such as Arrigo Sacchi, Carlo Ancelotti, Nereo Rocco, Roberto Mancini, Marcello Lippi, Fabio Capello, Claudio Ranieri, Enzo Bearzot, Giovanni Trapattoni, and more recently Antonio Conte, Massimiliano Allegri and Maurizio Sarri, worthy of mention. Due to their geographical closeness, Italy has a major rivalry with France, increased in the last decades with France eliminating Italy on penalties in the 1998 World Cup quarterfinals (and then winning the tournament), and again winning the Euro 2000 final, scoring the equalizer in the last second of the match and then winning on a golden goal. However, Italy was able to get its revenge in the 2006 World Cup Final, defeating the old rival on penalties and winning the tournament in front of them. The two teams faced each other again in the Euro 2008 group stage, with Italy defeating France, kicking them out of the tournament and advancing to the next round (only to be defeated by Spain).

Despite being one of the most successful European sides, Italy are famous for winning when they're not considered favourites by the bookmakers, and have also become known for their highly tactical and defensive style of play made famous by the "catenaccio" (translates to "door-bolt" in Italian) style of play that dominated football in the Sixties - in a more modern exhibit, the Azzurri only conceded two goals in their winning 2006 campaign, and one of them was an own goal. In the 1982 World Cup for instance, their victory came as something of a shock. After an underwhelming group stage, they defeated both Brazil and Argentina (with Brazil in particular being the favourite by bookmakers to win the tournament) in the knock-out stages, then beat West Germany in the final. Again in the 1994 World Cup, after only advancing from the group stage as one of the best third placed teams, they reached the final and only lost, on the penalties, against Brazil (thanks to the infamous missed penalty by Roberto Baggio, the biggest star in the team). The last example was in the 2006 World Cup; after a huge match-fixing scandal in Italian football which saw most of the big teams forcibly relegated to the lower divisions and/or being stripped of any titles won that year (namely Juventus - which paved the way for Internazionale to regain domination of Italian football, having not been national champions for 16 years at that point - though Juve reclaimed their crown in 2012, starting a string of nine titles, with only Napoli and - to a slightly lesser extent - Roma mounting up a serious challenge to their dominance in that span), the national team was able to avoid any distraction and go forward to win the World Cup making a huge comeback.

In the 2010s, despite reaching the European Championship Final in 2012 (where they were curbstomped 4-0 by the all-conquering Spain), the Italian team was in something of a transition period, with the best players retiring and the new leaders not being good enough to make a team that can compete with the best. In fact, the team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, for the first time in 60 years, after a shocking 1-0 defeat against Sweden that they couldn't make up for. After this, though, the Azzurri experienced a steady rise back to their usual levels, helped by Roberto Mancini's tenure and a slew of young, promising talents. They subsequently reached the 2020/21 Nations League's Final Four as hosts, and qualified to Euro 2020 after winning all of their matches in the group. They promptly stormed to the final, going up against a young and dynamic England side at Wembley, who they ultimately beat on penalties. Under Mancini they have also went in the longest unbeaten run in international football, going 37 games without a single loss. Also in 2021, Juve's reign over Serie A ended, with Inter claiming the title. The following year, however, this revival in fortunes came to a screeching halt when they failed to qualify for a second successive World Cup; having narrowly finished second in their qualifying group to Switzerland (despite not actually losing a game), they were stunned by North Macedonia in their play-off semi-final, losing 1-0 via a last minute goal. Domestically, Milan took the scudetto from their crosstown rivals.

Serie A

Founded: 1898 (adopted round-robin format 1929)
Number of Teams: 20
Domestic Cups: Coppa Italia; Supercoppa Italiana
Reigning Champions: Inter Milan (20th)
Most Championships: Juventus (36)

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Italian sides have also been very strong in Europe, and there are several different teams that have won major honours at home and internationally - as a matter of fact, with 51 titles in total, Italy is the second most successful country in world football when it comes to total trophies won behind Argentina.

In recent years, the reputation of Serie A for quality has taken a nosedive, being eclipsed by the resurgent Bundesliga, but this may be changing, due to Juventus reaching the 2015 and 2017 Champions League finals - both lost respectively against Barcelona and Real Madrid, and also Roma reaching the Champions League semifinals in 2018 after an upsetting 3-0 comeback victory against Barcelona in the quarter-finals's second leg following a 4-1 thrashing by the Azulgrana in the first leg. They almost managed to do the same against Liverpool, but ultimately were eliminated 7-6 on aggregate. More recently in 2022–23, three Serie A teams made it through the group stage and ended up being drawn against one another twice, with Milan knocking out Napoli in the quarterfinals and Inter taking out its city rival in the semifinals, eventually losing to Man City in the final.

Notable clubs include:

Atalanta BC

Founded: 1907
Nicknames: Atalanta; La Dea (The Goddess); Gli Orobici (The Orobics); I Nerazzurri (The Black and Blues)
Current Owner: Stephen Pagliuca, Antonio Percassi, and others
Current Manager: Gian Piero Gasperini
Current Captain: Rafael Tolói
Current Stadium: Stadio Atleti Azzurri d'Italia^note 
2023/24 Position: 4th in Serie A
Coppe Italia: 1; 1962–63
European Trophies: 2023–24 UEFA Europa League

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A historical minnow from Bergamo that has recently become a high-placing side in Serie A — culminating in back-to-back Champions League qualifications in 2019 and 2020 and a Europa League title in 2024, handing Bayer Leverkusen its only loss of the 2023–24 season in the final.

Atalanta are majority-owned by a group that includes Stephen Pagliuca, co-owner of the Boston Celtics. Atalanta is considered a Bergamo cultural institution, and supporters are known for their passion, though they have occasionally had incidents of hooliganism. Their biggest rival is Brescia, with their rivalry originating in a historical feud between Bergamo and Brescia that dates back to medieval times.

Brescia Calcio

Founded: 1911
Nicknames: Brescia; Le Rondinelle (The Little Swallows); I Biancazzurri (The White and Blues); La Leonessa (The Lioness)
Current Owner: Massimo Cellino
Current Manager: Rolando Maran
Current Captain: Dimitri Bisoli
Current Stadium: Stadio Mario Rigamonti^note 
2023/24 Position: 8th in Serie B

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Atalanta's fierce rivals and the side that launched the career of Andrea Pirlo, qualifying for European football in the late Nineties and early Noughties with his help. Since then though, they haven't met with much success; their last ascension to Serie A was in 2019, and they were relegated back down the following year.

Fiorentina

Founded: 1926 (re-founded 2002)
Nicknames: I Viola (The Purples or The Violets); I Gigliati (The Lilies)
Current Owner: New ACF Fiorentina S.r.l.
Current Manager: Vincenzo Italiano
Current Captain: Cristiano Biraghi
Current Stadium: Stadio Artemio Franchi^note 
2023/24 Position: 8th in Serie A
Serie A Titles: 2; 1955–56; 1968–69
Coppe Italia: 6; 1939–40; 1960–61; 1965–66; 1974–75; 1995–96; 2000–01
European Trophies: 1960–61 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup

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This Florentine team was Baggio's first major club, and one-time runners-up in both the European Cup and the UEFA Cup. The reached the Conference League finals in 2023 and 2024, losing them both to West Ham United and Olympiacos respectively.

Genoa CFC

Founded: 1893
Nicknames: Il Grifone (The Griffin); I Rossoblù (The Red and Blues); Il Vecchio Balordo (The Old Fool)
Current Owner: 777 Partners
Current Manager: Alberto Gilardino
Current Captain: Milan Badelj
Current Stadium: Stadio Luigi Ferraris^note 
2023/24 Position: 11th in Serie A
Coppe Italia: 1; 1936–37
Serie A Titles: 9; 1898, 1899, 1900, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1914–15, 1922–23, 1923–24

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One of the oldest football clubs in the world and the undisputed dominator of Serie A's early years. Were relegated in 2022 but managed to achieve promotion the next year.

Genoa's status as a port city meant that support for Genoa has flowed to other countries from the US to Japan. Their biggest rivals are Sampdoria, with whom they share a ground. They also have a rivalry with AC Milan.

Inter Milan

Founded: 1908
Full Name: Football Club Internazionale Milano
Nicknames: Internazionale; Inter; I Nerazzurri (The Black and Blues); La Beneamata (The Well-Cherished One); Il Biscione (The Big Grass Snake)
Current Owner: Oaktree Capital Management
Current Manager: Simone Inzaghi
Current Captain: Lautaro Martínez
Current Stadium: San Siro^note 
2023/24 Position: 1st in Serie A
Serie A Titles: 20^note 
Coppe Italia: 9; 1938–39, 1977–78, 1981–82, 2004–05, 2005–06, 2009–10, 2010–11, 2021–22, 2022–23
European Trophies: 1963–64, 1964–65, & 2009–10 European Cups/Champions Leagues; 1990–91, 1993–94, & 1997–98 UEFA Cups/Europa Leagues
Worldwide Trophies: 2010 FIFA Club World Cup; 1964 & 1965 Intercontinental Cups

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Most recent Serie A champions, Inter are the only team to have never been relegated from Serie A, and the only Italian team to achieve a continental treble.

Internazionale Milan dates to 1908, when a schism within AC Milan prompted disaffected Milan players to leave and Start Their Own club so they could sign on more foreign players (hence the Internazionale suffix), and the two have been arch-rivals ever since. During Silvio Berlusconi's tenure as Milan's owner, Inter's supporters leaned more to the left, but these days they have support from all over the political spectrum.

In addition to San Siro cohabitants Milan, Inter has a fierce rivalry with Juventus and lesser rivalries with Roma, Atalanta, and Napoli.

The team attracted controversy when it announced its intentions to join the European Super League. After the six English ESL teams pulled out, Inter (along with AC Milan) followed suit just three days after the ESL announcement.

Juventus

Founded: 1897
Nicknames: Juve; La Vecchia Signora (The Old Lady); La Fidanzata d'Italia (The Girlfriend of Italy); Madama (The Lady); I Bianconeri (The White-and-Blacks); Le Zebre (The Zebras)
Current Owner: the Agnelli family
Current Manager: vacant
Current Captain: Danilo
Current Stadium: Juventus Stadium^note 
2023/24 Position: 3rd in Serie A
Serie A Titles: 36^note 
Coppe Italia: 15^note 
European Trophies: 1984–85 & 1995–96 European Cups/Champions Leagues; 1983–84 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup; 1976–77, 1989–90 & 1992–93 UEFA Cups/Europa Leagues; 1984 & 1996 UEFA Super Cups; 1999 Intertoto Cup
Worldwide Trophies: 1985 & 1996 Intercontinental Cups

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Pronounced "Yew-ventus," this Turinese club is Italy's most dominant team, with 36 Serie A titles and counting and 15 Coppe Italia.^note  Juventus has been owned by the Agnelli family – founders of the Fiat auto company – since 1949, having been involved with the club since the 1920s.

"Juve" has a fanbase all across Italy and beyond – especially in areas with a significant Italian diaspora. Traditionally they have a crosstown rivalry with Torino (whose founders broke away from Juventus in 1906), but these days, their biggest rivals are Inter Milan and to a lesser extent AC Milan.

As a side note, their colors were originally pink, but they switched to their iconic black-and-white in 1905 after being inspired by English side Notts County.

Since claiming the 2019–20 Serie A title, the 2020s have been a rocky road for Juventus. Along with the two Milan teams, Juventus was one of the teams who planned to join the proposed European Super League in 2021. Chairman Andrea Agnelli was one of the movers and shakers behind the ESL, being a vice-chairman, and having resigned from his position as chairman of the European Club Association in anticipation of the league's launch. Perhaps as a result of this, Juventus was a laggard in leaving the ESL, being one of only three teams left three days after the league's announcement until it finally pulled out in June of 2023.

They would go on to have a disappointing Champions League tenure in 2022–23, and in November 2022, the team's entire board (including Andrea Agnelli) resigned. Two days after this, the team was deducted fifteen points (later reduced to ten) in the Serie A standings and banned from UEFA competitions for one year over capital gains violations.

Lazio

Founded: 1927
Nicknames: Capitolini; I Biancocelesti (The White and Sky Blues); I Biancazzurri (The White and Blues); Le Aquile (The Eagles); Le Aquilotti (The Young Eagles)
Current Owner: Claudio Lotito
Current Manager: Igor Tudor
Current Captain: Ciro Immobile
Current Stadium: Stadio Olimpico^note 
2023/24 Position: 7th in Serie A
Serie A Titles: 2; 1973–74, 1999–2000
Coppe Italia: 7; 1958, 1997–98, 1999–2000, 2003–04, 2008–09, 2012–13, 2018–19
European Trophies: 1998–99 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup; 1999 UEFA Super Cup

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Winners of the final edition of the Cup Winners' Cup in 1999. Arch-Enemies of stadium-mates Roma, matches between them can be tempestuous affairs, and Lazio supporters have been accused of hooliganism and more-than-latent… okay, actually pretty dang overt racism, antisemitism, and fascist sympathies. This has given the club a derogatory nickname of "Nazio".

AC Milan

Milan, Milan, solo con te!

Founded: 1899
Nicknames: Milan; I Rossoneri (The Red and Blacks); Il Diavolo (The Devil)
Current Owner: RedBird Capital Partners
Current Manager: Paulo Fonseca
Current Captain: Davide Calabria
Current Stadium: San Siro^note 
2023/24 Position: 2nd in Serie A
Serie A Titles: 19^note 
Coppe Italia: 5; 1966–67, 1971–72, 1972–73, 1976–77, 2002–03
European Trophies: 1962–63, 1968–69, 1988–89, 1989–90, 1993–94, 2002–03, & 2006–07 European Cups/Champions Leagues; 1967–68 & 1972–73 European Cup Winners' Cups; 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003, & 2007 European Super Cups/UEFA Super Cups
Worldwide Trophies: 2007 FIFA Club World Cup; 1969, 1989, & 1990 Intercontinental Cups

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Third-most successful club in Italy and one of the wealthiest in the world, Milan has seven Champions League titles to its name. From 1986 to 2008 (with a brief break from 2004 to 2006), AC Milan was owned by controversial (now-late) Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, which earned the team some advertising from Mediaset (which was also owned by Berlusconi).

AC Milan's biggest rivals are Inter Milan, with whom they share San Siro. Historically, Milan was more blue-collar while Inter was more middle-class, though this distinction has become less relevant in recent years. During Berlusconi's ownership, they leaned more to the right. They also have a hot rivalry with Juventus, and a lesser rivalry with Genoa.

Milan courted controversy in 2021, when it revealed its intentions to join the European Super League. However, along with Inter, they pulled out within three days of the announcement.

SSC Napoli

Founded: 1926
Nicknames: Gli Azzurri (The Blues); I Partenopei (The Parthenopeans); I Ciucciarelli (The Little Donkeys)
Current Owner: Aurelio de Laurentiis
Current Manager: Antonio Conte
Current Captain: Giovanni di Lorenzo
Current Stadium: Stadio Diego Armando Maradona^note 
2023/24 Position: 10th in Serie A
Serie A Titles: 2; 1986–87, 1989–90, 2022–23
Coppe Italia: 6; 1961–62, 1975–76, 1986–87, 2011–12, 2013–14, 2019–20
European Trophies: 1988–89 UEFA Cup

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Formed in 1926 from the merger of two other clubs, Napoli is the fourth most supported team in Italy. Home games can get so loud that they've registered as earthquakes on seismographs.

Most famous for being the club Diego Maradona has played for at the height of his career; won the UEFA Cup once with him in 1989 beating teams like Juventus and Bayern Munich on the way, and most recently ran away with the 2022–23 Serie A title, having clinched it with five matches still to be played.

Lacking any major local rivals, Napoli is the biggest team to come out of southern Italy, and its biggest rivals these days are northern teams Roma and Juventus.

Parma Calcio 1913

Founded: 1913 (re-founded 2015)
Nicknames: Parma; I Crociati (The Crusaders); I Gialloblu (The Yellow and Blues); I Ducali (The Duchy Men); Gli Emiliani (The Emilians)
Current Owner: Kyle Krause
Current Manager: Fabio Pecchia
Current Captain: Enrico Del Prato
Current Stadium: Stadio Ennio Tardini^note 
2023/24 Position: 1st in Serie B (promoted)
Coppe Italia: 3; 1991–92, 1998–99, 2001–02
European Trophies: 1994–95 & 1998–99 UEFA Cups; 1992–93 European Cup Winners' Cup; 1993 European Super Cup

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Hailing from in the northern region of Emilia-Romagna, Parma were winners of two UEFA Cups in 1995 and 1999. However, financial troubles stemming from fraud allegations against their owners resulted in the club collapsing in the 2000s before finally going bankrupt in 2015. The club would be re-founded that same year, and achieved back-to-back-to-back promotions from Serie D — Italy's equivalent to England's League Two — all the way to Serie A from 2016 to 2018. They dropped to Serie B again in 2021 and made it back to Serie A in 2024.

AS Roma

Founded: 1927
Nicknames: I Giallorossi (The Yellow and Reds); La Lupa (The She-Wolf); La Magica (The Magic One); Capitolini (Capitoline); Lupetti (Little Cubs); Lupi (Wolves)
Current Owner: Dan Freidkin
Current Manager: Daniele De Rossi
Current Captain: Lorenzo Pellegrini
Current Stadium: Stadio Olimpico^note 
2023/24 Position: 6th in Serie A
Serie A Titles: 3; 1941–42, 1982–83, & 2000–01
Coppe Italia: 9; 1963–64, 1968–69, 1979–80, 1980–81, 1983–84, 1985–86, 1990–91, 2006–07, 2007–08
European Trophies: 2021–22 UEFA Conference League; 1960–61 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup

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Formed from the merger of three Roman teams in 1927, Roma reached the 1984 European Cup Final and won the inaugural Conference League in 2022. They are Arch-Enemies of fellow Roman side Lazio, with whom they share the Stadio Olimpico. Their rivalry has at times resulted in violence.

Sampdoria

Founded: 1946
Nicknames: I Blucerchiati (The Blue-circled); La Samp; Il Doria
Current Owner: Blucerchiati S.p.A.
Current Manager: Andrea Pirlo
Current Captain: Nicola Murru
Current Stadium: Stadio Luigi Ferraris^note 
2023/24 Position: 7th in Serie B
Serie A Titles: 1; 1990–91
Coppe Italia: 4; 1984–85, 1987–88, 1988–89, 1993–94
European Trophies: 1989–90 European Cup Winners' Cup

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Genoa's stadium-mate and rival, Sampdoria formed in 1946 from the merger of two Genovese clubs (their name being a portmanteau of Sampierdarenese and Andrea Doria). Their heyday was in the late '80s and early '90s, when they reached the 1992 European Cup Final, falling to Barcelona. They also have the 1989 European Cup Winners' Cup to their name as well as one Serie A title in 1990.

Netherlands men's national team

Nicknames: Oranje; Holland; Clockwork Orange; The Flying Dutchmen
Kit: Orange shirt and socks and white shorts
Current Head Coach: Ronald Koeman
Current Captain: Virgil van Dijk
Home stadium: various
FIFA Code: NED
Trophies Won: 1988 UEFA European Championship

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One of the best countries never to have won the FIFA World Cup - they made it to the final in 1974, 1978, and 2010, losing to the hosts in '74 and '78 (West Germany and Argentina respectively) and to Spain in 2010. In fact, they only have the 1988 European Championship to show for decades of high-quality football. Co-hosted the 2000 European Championship with Belgium. After failing to make Euro 2016 or World Cup 2018, they beat France and Germany to win their Nations League group and make the inaugural tournament's final 4, taking second place to Portugal.

Eredivisie

Founded: 1956
Number of Teams: 18
Domestic Cups: KNVB Cup; Johan Cruyff Shield
Reigning Champions: PSV Eindhoven (25th)
Most Championships: Ajax (28)

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The Dutch league is dominated by three sides: Ajax of Amsterdam , reigning champion PSV Eindhoven, and Feyenoord of Rotterdam. Ajax and PSV have also completed a continental treble each: in 1972 and 1988, respectively. Coincidentally, Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV all have red and white as their society colors, but adopt different jersey schemes to differentiate themselves: Ajax have a red shirt body with white sleeves; Feyenoord have a red half and a white half; PSV have vertical red and white stripes, a style shared with fellow Dutch side and Feyenoord's city rivals, Sparta Rotterdam.

Notable teams include:

Ajax

Founded: 1900
Nicknames: de Godenzonen (Sons of the Gods); de Joden (the Jews); Lucky Ajax
Current Owner: AFC Ajax N.V.
Current Manager: Francesco Farioli (effective 11 June 2024)
Current Captain: Steven Bergwijn
Current Stadium: Johan Cruyff Arena^note 
2023/24 Position: 5th in Eredivisie
Eredivisie Titles: 36^note 
KNVB Cups: 20^note 
European Trophies: 1970–71, 1971–72, 1972–73, & 1994–95 European Cups/Champions Leagues; 1986–87 European Cup Winners' Cup; 1991–92 UEFA Cup; 1973 & 1995 European Super Cups/UEFA Super Cups
Worldwide Trophies: 1972 & 1995 Intercontinental Cups

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Amsterdam-based Ajax (pronounced eye-yaks, not ay-jacks) have been one of the strongest teams in Europe on occasion, particularly in the early 1970s when they won three European Cups on the trot, and are renowned for producing extraordinarily good players, including the late, great Johan Cruyff, the crux of the all-conquering Total Football Dutch side of the 70's and inventor of the Cruyff turn, a deceptively difficult piece of skill which, when properly executed, leaves defenders on their arses. When improperly executed, the attacker winds up on his arse, and everyone laughs.

Their less-than-PC nickname "the Jews" stems from being popularly seen as having Jewish roots dating back to the 1930s, when Ajax's stadium was next to a Jewish neighbourhood. This earned the club a number of antisemitic taunts from opposing fans, which wound up alienating Jewish supporters. In the last couple decades, the club has been trying to eschew the name. For English football fans, compare the controversy surrounding Tottenham Hotspur's "Yid Army" moniker.

Ajax's biggest rivals are fellow big-name Dutch clubs Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven.

AZ Alkmaar

Founded: 1967
Nicknames: AZ; De Kaasboeren (The Cheese Farmers)
Current Chairman: René Neelissen
Current Manager: Maarten Martens
Current Captain: Bruno Martins Indi
Current Stadium: AFAS Stadion^note 
2023/24 Position: 4th in Eredivisie
Eredivisie Titles: 2: 1980–81, 2008–09
KNVB Cups: 4; 1977–78, 1980–81, 1981–82, 2012–13

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From Alkmaar in North Holland, which is known for its cheese market (hence the "Cheese Farmers" nickname). While known as "AZ Alkmaar" internationally, the Dutch use just "AZ", an abbreviation for the formal club name of Alkmaar Zaanstreek. The current club was the product of a merger between Alkmaar '54 (founded in 1954) and FC Zaanstreek (founded in 1910). Made the 1980-81 UEFA Cup Final, losing to Ipswich Town. Have also won four KNVB Cups and two Eredivisie titles.

PSV Eindhoven

Founded: 1913
Nicknames: PSV; Boeren (Peasants or Farmers); Lampen (Lightbulbs); Rood-witten (Red and whites)
Current Owner: Foundation PSV Football
Current Manager: Peter Bosz
Current Captain: Luuk de Jong
Current Stadium: Philips Stadion^note 
2023/24 Position: 1st in Eredivisie
Eredivisie Titles: 25^note 
KNVB Cups: 11^note 
European Trophies: 1987–88 European Cup; 1977–78 UEFA Cup

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Current reining Eredivisie champions, PSV hails from Eindhoven in the province of North Brabant and was founded in 1913 as a team for employees of Dutch company Philips, and even today, the multinational conglomerate has ties to the team. Supporters of the team often take pride in their North Brabantian heritage. Their main rival is Ajax.

Feyenoord Rotterdam

Founded: 1908
Nicknames: Feyenoord; De club aan de Maas (The Club on the Meuse); De Stadionclub (The Stadium Club); De club van het volk (The Club of the People); De Trots van Zuid (The Pride of South)
Current Chairman: Dennis te Kloese
Current Manager: Brian Priske
Current Captain: Gernot Trauner
Current Stadium: De Kuip^note 
2023/24 Position: 2nd in Eredivisie
Eredivisie Titles: 16^note 
KNVB Cups: 14^note 
European Trophies: 1969–70 European Cup; 1973–74 & 2001–02 UEFA Cups
Worldwide Trophies: 1970 Intercontinental Cup

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Was the first Dutch team to win an European trophy, with the European Cup in 1970. And their 2002 UEFA cup win makes Feyenoord also the last Dutch team to win a European trophy. Feyenoord's rivalry with Ajax is a major affair, as it pits traditionally blue-collar Rotterdam against traditionally white-collar Amsterdam, with the two teams having some ugly run-ins with each other both on and off the pitch. They also have crosstown rivalries with Sparta Rotterdam and Excelsior.

FC Groningen

Founded: 1971
Nicknames: Trots van het Noorden (Pride of the North); De FC (The FC)
Current Owner: FC Groningen Beheer B.V.
Current Manager: Dick Lukkien
Current Captain: Leandro Bacuna
Current Stadium: Euroborg^note 
2023/24 Position: 2nd in Eerste Divisie (promoted)
Eredivisie Titles: 2: 1980–81, 2008–09
KNVB Cups: 1; 2014–15

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From Groningen in Groningen Province, FC Groningen revealed world-class players such as Arjen Robben, Luis Suárez in his first European club after leaving Nacional^note , and Virgil van Dijk. Also won the 2014–15 KNVB Cup.

FC Twente

Founded: 1965
Nicknames: The Tukkers; Pride of the East; The Reds
Current Chairman: Paul van der Kraan
Current Manager: Joseph Oosting
Current Captain: Robin Pröpper
Current Stadium: De Grolsch Veste^note 
2023/24 Position: 3rd in Eredivisie
Eredivisie Titles: 1; 2009–10
KNVB Cups: 3; 1976–77, 2000–01, 2010–11

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From Enschede in the eastern Netherlands, Twente is the latest team outside the Ajax-Feyenoord-PSV trifecta to win the national title, in 2009-10). They can also boast three KNVB Cups to their name. Their women's section has the most titles in Dutch history; see below.

Netherlands women's national team

Nicknames: Oranje, Leeuwinnen^note  (with the two sometimes combined)
Kit: All-orange
Current Manager: Andries Jonker
Current Captain: Sherida Spitse
Home Stadium: various
Trophies Won: Euro 2017
Best World Cup Finish: Runner-up, 2019

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Women's football was slow to develop here because it was one of several European countries where women's football was banned for decades. That said, the ban was lifted in time for the Dutch to play the first-ever FIFA-recognized women's international against France in 1971 (and get smoked 4–0). After failing to qualify for the Euros or World Cup through the 1980s and 1990s, the KNVB started taking the women's game more seriously, founding a women's Eredivisie (below) in 2007. The Leeuwinnen first qualified for a major tournament at Euro 2009, and qualified for their first World Cup in 2015. This was the prelude to an astonishing run on home soil at the Euros two years later, winning all their matches on their way to their first major trophy (also the first time Germany had failed to win the Euros since 1993). At the next World Cup in 2019, they made it all the way to the final before running into a juggernaut in the form of the USWNT. It goes without saying that the Euro 2017 and 2019 World Cup runs greatly elevated the Dutch women's game.

Vrouwen Eredivisie^note 

Founded: First founded 2007; reestablished 2015
Number of Teams: 12
Domestic Cups: KNVB Women's Cup, Dutch Women's Super Cup, Eredivisie Cup
Reigning Champions: Twente (9th)^note 
Most Championships: Twente (9)

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As noted above, the Eredivisie was founded in 2007 after a long period of indifference to the women's game in the Dutch football establishment. After the 2011–12 season, the KNVB and the Belgian federation merged their top-level women's leagues, but this experiment lasted only three seasons before the merger was undone and the two countries reestablished separate top flights. AZ won the first three titles of the women's league, but since then Twente and Ajax have won all but one of the titles, with ADO Den Haag being the only other side with a title (once in 2012).

Portuguese National Team

Nicknames: A Seleção das Quinas (The Team of the Escutcheons); Lusos (Lusitanians)
Uniform: Red shirt, white shorts and green socks
Current Head Coach: Roberto Martinez
Current Captain: Cristiano Ronaldo
Home stadium: Estádio Nacional, Oeiras, Lisbon District^note 
FIFA Code: POR
Trophies Won: 2016 UEFA European Championship; 2019 UEFA Nations League

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Portugal play in and have been a frustrating side to support: brilliant at times and with some hugely talented players but never ''quite'' able to parlay this into a trophy win. The closest they got to this was when they hosted Euro 2004, but surprisingly enough, they lost to Greece in the final. Finally, in 2016 they surprised everyone by winning their first international trophy, defeating the host France in the Euro 2016 Final, and they did it without Cristiano Ronaldo, injured after 20 minutes. Portugal was not considered the favourite by bookmakers, but managed to advance in the knockout phase as a third-place team, and reached the final by winning just one match in regular time (the semifinal against Wales). Hosts of the first Nations League final 4 tournament after holding off Italy and Poland, taking on England, Switzerland and Netherlands, ultimately coming out on top with a hard-fought win over the Dutch at the final.

Primeira Liga

Founded: 1934
Number of Teams: 18
Domestic Cups: Taça de Portugal; Supertaça
Reigning Champions: Sporting CP (20th)
Most Championships: Benfica (38)

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Portuguese domestic football is dominated by three clubs: Benfica and Sporting, both from Lisbon, and FC Porto. Between them they have won the league 86 times out of 88: the other two wins were one-shot victories for Belenenses (Lisbon) in 1946 and Boavista (Porto) in 2001. This means that technically, the league title has never left neither Lisbon nor Porto. Benfica and FC Porto have also won Europe's top club honour, the Champions League (formerly the European Cup), most recently Porto in 2003/04.

S.L. Benfica

Founded: 1904
Nicknames: As Águias (The Eagles); Os Encarnados (The Reds); O Glorioso (The Glorious One)
Current President: Rui Costa
Current Head Coach: Roger Schmidt
Current Captain: Nicolás Otamendi
Current Stadium: Estádio da Luz^note 
2023/24 Position: 2nd in Primeira Liga
Primeira Liga Titles: 38^note 
Taças de Portugal: 26^note 
European Trophies: 1960–61 & 1961–62 European Cups

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From Lisbon, Benfica are Portugal's most decorated and reknowned team, with 83 domestic trophies, including 38 Primeira Liga titles, as well as two European Cups in a row in the '60s. Its popularity is hard to overstate, as its membership is among the highest of any football club in the world.

Traditionally Benfica are seen as Lisbon's working-class club, and it maintains fierce rivalries with the other members of Portugal's "Big Three." Its crosstown rivalry with Sporting dates back to the 1900s and is referred to in Portugal as the "derby of derbies."

FC Porto

Founded: 1906
Nicknames: Dragões (Dragons); Azuis e brancos (Blue and whites)
Current President: André Villas-Boas
Current Head Coach: Sérgio Conceição
Current Captain: Pepe
Current Stadium: Estádio do Dragão^note 
2023/24 Position: 3rd in Primeira Liga
Primeira Liga Titles: 30^note 
Taças de Portugal: 20^note 
European Trophies: 1986–87 & 2003–04 UEFA European Cups/Champions Leagues; 2002–03 & 2010–11 UEFA Cups/Europa Leagues; 1987 UEFA Super Cup; 1987 & 2004 Intercontinental Cups

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Hailing from Portugal's second-biggest city, Porto rounds out the country's "Big Three" teams. While they come behind Benfica in terms of domestic titles, Porto has enjoyed the most success internationally of any Portuguese club, with seven trophies, including two European Cup/Champions League titles.

Porto has held fierce rivalries with the other two "Big Three" clubs since Porto started challenging the Lisboan teams' dominance of the league in the 1940s. They also have a rivalry with fellow Portuense club Boavista.

Sporting CP

Founded: 1906
Nicknames: Leões (Lions); Verde e brancos (Green and whites)
Current President: Frederico Varandas
Current Head Coach: Rúben Amorim
Current Captain: Sebastián Coates
Current Stadium: Estádio José Alvalade^note 
2023/24 Position: 1st in Primeira Liga
Primeira Liga Titles: 20^note 
Taças de Portugal: 17^note 
European Trophies: 1963–64 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup

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Reigning Primeira Liga champions and Benfica's crosstown rivals since 1907, when a number of Benfica players defected to Sporting over training conditions. Though they also enjoy a rivalry with Porto to round out the "Big Three", though at one point, in 2017, they formed an alliance against Benfica.

Spain men's national team

Nicknames: La Roja (The Red One); La Furia Roja (The Red Fury)
Kit: Red shirt with yellow accents, blue shorts and black socks
Current Head Coach: Luis de la Fuente
Current Captain: Álvaro Morata
Home stadium: various
FIFA Code: ESP
Trophies Won: 2010 World Cup; 1964, 2008, 2012, & 2024 UEFA European Championships; 2023 UEFA Nations League; 1992 Olympic gold medalists

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Spain, like Portugal, has often promised much and delivered little in the way of silverware. Unlike Portugal, however, the Spanish team have won the European Championship four times, with their 2024 win breaking the tie they had with Germany for most Euro titles.

The 2008 winning team also went on to record Spain's first World Cup win at the 2010 edition held in South Africa, and their hegemony was confirmed again at the Poland-Ukraine Euro 2012. During that time, their two most successful managers - Vicente del Bosque and Pep Guardiola - popularized tiki-taka, a strategy that has become a staple of Spanish football in general and which could be best described as football's own Drunken Boxing: it generally consists of short, quick passes when under ball possession to destabilize the enemy defense and subsequently paralyze the opposing team, creating space for scoring opportunities as a result, and counter-pressing when without the ball high up on the field to suffocate any ambush from the opponents and gain back the ball in threatening positions. Doing tiki-taka properly is extremely difficult and takes immense stamina, collective skill and near-perfect team play, but if done so it proves immensely lethal, as shown with Guardiola's stints with Barcelona and Manchester City for example. Although it has shown its limits nowadays and has received an equal and a counter in the form of German-style gegenpressing, many teams in Europe still take inspiration from tiki-taka to varying degrees of success.

The national team entered the 2014 World Cup as the reigning European and World champions, and were generally considered to be the best national side in the world—but their World Cup campaign went disastrously wrong, with La Roja assured of exiting in the group stage after their first two matches, as well as in the 2016 European Championship when Italy defeated them after the knockout stage. Nonetheless, Spain is the first European champion to successfully defend the crown and the first national team in the world to win three back-to-back major international titles since Italy in 1934-36-38. They later went on to beat England to win the 2024 European Championship.

La Liga

Founded: 1929
Number of Teams: 20
Domestic Cups: Copa del Rey; Supercopa de España
Reigning Champions: Real Madrid (36th)
Most Championships: Real Madrid (36)

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Spain's La Liga has historically been among the most successful and richest in the world, in large part thanks to their two giants, Real Madrid (reigning league champions) and FC Barcelona, the rivalry between whom is intensified by politics and what can only be called a centuries-old historical vendetta.

Notable teams include:

Athletic Bilbao

Founded: 1898
Nickname: Lehoiak (The Lions); Zuri-gorriak (The Red and Whites); Euskaldunak (The Basques)
Current President: Jon Uriarte
Current Manager: Ernesto Valverde
Current Captain: Iker Muniain
Current Stadium: San Mamés^note 
2023/24 Position: 5th in La Liga
La Liga Titles: 8; 1929–30, 1930–31, 1933–34, 1935–36, 1942–43, 1955–56, 1982–83, 1983–84
Copas del Rey: 24^note 

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The fourth most successful team in La Liga, and one of the only three to never be relegated from there.^note  Runners-up in the 1977 and 2012 UEFA Cups/Europa Leagues, losing to Juventus and Atlético Madrid respectively. And yes, the team's legal name is the English "Athletic Club" – a nod to the Basque Country's history of trade with the UK.

Arguably the biggest team out of the Basque Country, they are known for their efforts - known as cantera – to cultivate talent from that region by playing exclusively Basque players, which has earned it both praise and criticism.^note  They also used to have a long-standing policy of not having a shirt sponsor until 2008, and even since then, all their shirt sponsors have hailed from the Basque Country.

Like the Big Two, Athletic Bilbao is fan-owned. Their biggest rival is fellow Basque team Real Sociedad.

Atlético Madrid

Founded: 1903
Nicknames: Colchoneros (Mattress Makers); Indios (Indians)
Current President: Enrique Cerezo
Current Head Coach: Diego Simeone
Current Captain: Koke
Current Stadium: Metropolitano Stadium^note 
2023/24 Position: 4th in La Liga
La Liga Titles: 11^note 
Copas del Rey: 10; 1959–60, 1960–61, 1964–65, 1971–72, 1975–76, 1984–85, 1990–91, 1991–92, 1995–96, 2012–13
European Trophies: 1961–62 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup; 2009–10, 2011–12, & 2017–18 UEFA Europa Leagues; 2010, 2012, & 2018 UEFA Super Cups
International Trophies: 1974 Intercontinental Cup

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Third force in La Liga and three-time (1974, 2014, and 2016) Champions League runners-up. King Felipe VI of Spain has been honorary president since 2003.

Originating in 1903 from an offshoot of Athletic Bilbao, Atlético enjoyed a golden age in the '60s and '70s as they were the only team in La Liga that could pose a serious threat to crosstown rivals (Real) Madrid. This garnered them support from Madrid's hatedom, giving chants like "Hala Madrid, hala Madrid, el equipo del gobierno, la vergüenza del país,"^note  which is ironic, given that Atlético initially enjoyed support from The Franco Regime due to their ties to the Spanish Air Force from 1939 to 1947 (during which time they were called Atlético Aviación). These days, even more ironically, their fanbase leans to the left, being seen as the team for working-class Madrilenians, counteracting the more upper-class Real Madrid.

Atlético also owns two other teams – Mexican Liga MX side Atlético San Luis and Canadian Premier League side Atlético Ottawa – and used to own Indian Super League franchise Atlético de Kolkata (sensing a pattern here?).

Along with Real Madrid and Barcelona, Atlético Madrid was one of the teams that were part of the abortive European Super League. However, unlike the Big Two, Atlético pulled out of the venture within three days of the announcement.

Barcelona

Més que un club^note 

Founded: 1899
Nicknames: Barça or Blaugrana
Current President: Joan Laporta
Current Head Coach: Hansi Flick
Current Captain: Sergi Roberto
Current Stadium: Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys^note 
2023/24 Position: 2nd in La Liga
La Liga Titles: 27^note 
Copas del Rey: 31^note 
European Trophies: 1991–92, 2005–06, 2008–09, 2010–11, & 2014–15 UEFA Champions Leagues; 1984–85 & 1985–86 UEFA Cups/Europa Leagues; 1978–79, 1981–82, 1988–89, & 1996–97 UEFA Cup Winners' Cups; 1992, 1997, 2009, 2011, & 2015 UEFA Super Cups; 1955–58, 1958–60, & 1965–66 Inter-Cities Fairs Cups; 1949 & 1952 Latin Cups
International Trophies: 2009, 2011, & 2015 FIFA Club World Cups; 1960, 1998, & 2002 Intercontinental Cups

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Spain's second most dominant team, though that is not to say they're second fiddle!

Like Arch-Enemies Real Madrid, Barcelona is fan-owned, and while they've historically been less successful than Real Madrid, they're one of the few teams that rival it in terms of, silverware, wealth, and international renown. Along with Bayern Munich, Barcelona is the only European club to have achieved two continental trebles^note  in its history, the first in 2009, and the second in 2015. They're also the team with the most Copas del Rey at 31.

The city of Barcelona is capital of Catalonia, a proudly different region of Spain with its own language and customs, both of which were repressed during the The Franco Regime. Consequently, Catalans rallied around the team and it became a Catalan cultural institution - from which came the club's famous motto. Today, Catalonia has a large and vocal independence movement, with Barcelona's current team president, Joan Laporta, vocally expressing support for Catalan secession and embracing Barça's role as a Catalan cultural focal point.

Barça's Catalan fanbase means it has an intense rivalry with Real Madrid, as Catalans have long memories of Real Madrid being seen (rightly or not) as the team of the Franco Regime, and even now oppose ideas of centralization around the Spanish capital. They also have a lesser (and much more one-sided) rivalry with fellow Barcelona area club Espanyol, who traditionally have been seen as the club for pro-Madrid Catalans, in contrast to Barça's more regionalist ethos. Looking outside of Spain, Barcelona also have a rivalry with Italian side AC Milan due to how many times they've met in European competition.

Along with Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid, Barcelona was a member of the abortive European Super League. As of 2024, they and Real Madrid are the only teams that haven't withdrawn from it, despite disapproval of the league from Barça fans.

RCD Espanyol

Founded: 1900
Nicknames: Periquitos (Parakeets); Blanquiazules (White-and-Blues)
Current Owner: Rastar Group
Current Manager: Manolo González
Current Captain: Sergi Gómez
Current Stadium: RCDE Stadium^note 
2023/24 Position: 4th in Segunda División; won promotion playoffs
Copas del Rey: 4; 1928–29, 1940, 1999–2000, 2005–06

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The other notable team to come from Catalonia, Espanyol originally started as Español. In many ways, they were Barcelona's antithesis, initially only signing on Spanish players, and historically were seen as the team of non-Catalans and anti-regionalists in Catalonia. This however, has changed, as since 1995, they've tried to embrace a more regionalist ethos, including changing their name to the Catalan "Espanyol".

As one might expect, their biggest rivals have always been Barcelona, but the rivalry is extremely one-sided given Barça's immense success. In 2020, they were relegated to Segunda División, but would return to La Liga by winning the 2024 promotion playoffs.

Sevilla FC

Founded: 1890
Nicknames: Los Nervionenses; Los Hispalenses; Palanganas; Blanquirrojos; Rojiblancos; Sevillistas
Current Owner: Sevillistas de Nervión S. A.
Current Manager: Quique Sánchez Flores
Current Captain: Jesús Navas
Current Stadium: Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán^note 
2023/24 Position: 13th in La Liga
La Liga Titles: 1; 1945–46
Copas del Rey: 5; 1935, 1939, 1947–48, 2006–07, 2009–10
European Trophies: 2005–06, 2006–07, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2019–20, & 2022–23 Europa Leagues; 2006 UEFA Super Cup

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Founded by a group of Scots in 1890, Sevilla was once seen as the the club of the upper-crust until encountering financial trouble in the 1970s.

Sevilla can boast the most UEFA Europa League wins with seven titles, and has a crosstown rivalry with Real Betis.

Real Betis

Founded: 1907
Nicknames: Los Mejores ("The Best"); Los Verdiblancos ("The Green-and-Whites"); Los Verderones ("the Greens; Heliopolitanos ("Heliopolitans"); El Glorioso ("Ehe Glorious")
Current President: Ángel Haro García
Current Manager: Manuel Pellegrini
Current Captain: Aitor Ruibal
Current Stadium: Estadio Benito Villamarín^note 
2023/24 Position: 7th in La Liga
La Liga Titles: 1; 1934–35
Copas del Rey: 3; 1976–77, 2004–05, 2021–22

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Sevilla's much less successful crosstown rivals, Los Mejores seldom live up to their name, earning them Butt-Monkey status. However, this has given them a fanbase in spite of it all, leading to Self-Deprecating slogans like "¡Viva el Betis manque pierda!" ("Long live Betis even though they lose!")

Real Madrid

Founded: 1902
Nicknames: Los Blancos (The Whites); Los Merengues (The Meringues); Los Vikingos (The Vikings); La Casa Blanca (The White House); Reyes de Europa (Kings of Europe)
Current President: Florentino Pérez
Current Head Coach: Carlo Ancelotti
Current Captain: Nacho Fernández
Current Stadium: Santiago Bernabéu Stadium^note 
2023/24 Position: 1st in La Liga
La Liga Titles: 36^note 
Copas del Rey: 20^note 
European Trophies: 15^note  UEFA European Cups/Champions Leagues; 1984–85 & 1985–86 UEFA Cups/Europa Leagues; 2002, 2014, 2016, 2017, & 2022 UEFA Super Cups; 1955 & 1957 Latin Cups
International Trophies: 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, & 2022 FIFA Club World Cups; 1960, 1998, & 2002 Intercontinental Cups

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Spain's most dominant team and current La Liga and Champions League champions. The title real means "royal" and was bestowed upon them by King Alfonso XIII in 1920.^note 

A giant in both domestic and international football, they hold the record for most European Cup/Champions League titles (15),^note  most domestic league titles (36), and most FIFA Club World Cups (5). They are also one of only three teams in La Liga (the other two being Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao) to never have been relegated from the top flight since the league's inception in 1929. Real Madrid is fan-owned and has supporters all over the world, and rates as among the richest football teams (if not the richest) in the world.

All this winning and money paradoxically means that Los Blancos have a substantial Hatedom both in and out of Spain — either you love them or you despise them. So basically they're Spain's (if not Europe's) answer to the New York Yankees or the Dallas Cowboays.

On a less savoury note, Real Madrid was known for being a de facto ambassador for The Franco Regime during a time when Spain was diplomatically isolated (though Franco himself may have actually preferred Atlético de Madrid). Expect Real fans to deny these claims; the Franco years are still a touchy subject in Spanish football and mere mentions of it can and will cause discussion to get heated. Sadly, Real Madrid still has a contingent of right-wing supporters, who have earned scorn (and even investigation from UEFA) for hurling racial abuse at opposing players, though current president Florentino Pérez has been trying to rehabilitate the club's image by barring hard-right Ultra groups from Bernabéu Stadium.

On another controversial note, Real Madrid was one of three Spanish teams (the others being Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid) to try and break away from UEFA competitions to form the European Super League in 2021. In fact, Florentino Pérez was pretty much the driving force behind the ESL. However, the planned league fell apart, with Real Madrid and Barcelona left being the only two teams that didn't withdraw from the project after massive backlash.

Real Madrid's Arch-Enemy is Barcelona, with the two having an intense rivalry could be interpreted as a proxy war between the Spanish regions of Castile and Catalonia, with the politics of the Franco years intensifying the rivalry due to Franco's repression of Catalan language and culture. They also enjoy a crosstown rivalry with Atlético Madrid, who along with Barcelona, are the only teams to really stand a chance against its dominance of the league. The rivalry with Atlético also has a political/class dimension, as Atlético is seen as more left-wing and working class next to right-wing, upper-class Real Madrid. They also have a lesser-known rivalry with Athletic Bilbao. Internationally their biggest rivals are Bayern Munich, due to a number of defeats suffered at the German club's hands, to the point where Real Madrid fans call Bayern the Bestia Negra ("the Black Beast").

Valencia CF

Founded: 1919
Nicknames: Los Ches
Current Owner: Peter Lim
Current Manager: Rubén Baraja
Current Captain: José Gayà
Current Stadium: Mestalla^note 
2023/24 Position: 9th in La Liga
La Liga Titles: 6; 1941–42, 1943–44, 1946–47, 1970–71, 2001–02, 2003–04
Copas del Rey: 8; 1941, 1948–49, 1954, 1966–67, 1978–79, 1998–99, 2007–08, 2018–19
European Trophies: 1979–80 European Cup Winners' Cup; 2003–04 UEFA Cup; 1980 & 2004 UEFA Super Cups; 1961–62 & 1962–63 Inter-Cities Fairs Cups; 1998 Intertoto Cup

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A club of vacillating fortunes, enjoying success in the 1940s with three domestic titles, followed by periods of domestic and European success in the '60s and '70s before declining, leading to their relegation in 1986. They then had a resurgence in the late '90s and early 2000s, attaining two more domestic titles and reaching the 2000 and 2001 Champions League finals (losing to Real Madrid and Bayern Munich respectively). Unfortunately this preceded another decline as the club encountered financial difficulty, followed by Singaporean businessman Peter Lim's less-than-popular ownership.

Villarreal CF

Founded: 1923
Nickname: El Submarino Amarillo (The Yellow Submarine)
Current President: Fernando Roig
Current Manager: Marcelino
Current Captain: Raúl Albiol
Current Stadium: Estadio de la Cerámica^note 
2023/24 Position: 8th in La Liga
European Trophies: 2020–21 Europa League; 2003 & 2004 Intertoto Cup

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This team from the region of Valencia (not to be confused with the city of Valencia) is a relative newcomer to La Liga, only getting promoted in 1998, then getting relegated in 2012, then promoted back again the next year.

Recently they've been punching above their weight class. They clinched their first major trophy in 2021 when they beat Manchester United in the Europa League final. They've also made pushes into the Champions League, making the semifinals in 2006 and 2022, losing to Arsenal and Liverpool respectively.

Have rivalries with fellow Valencian team Valencia, as well as more local rivals Castellón.

Spain women's national team

Nickname: La Roja
Kit: Red shirt with yellow accents, blue shorts with yellow accents, and blue socks
Current Manager: Montserrat Tomé
Current Captain: Irene Paredes
Home Stadium: various
Trophies Won: 2023 Women's World Cup, 2024 UEFA Women's Nations League

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Didn't really take women's football seriously until roughly the mid-2010s, but once it did... did it EVER. Huge investments in the women's game by the top men's sides created a burgeoning talent pipeline that culminated in World Cup success in 2023—despite major conflict between the players on one side and the coaching staff and federation on the other. This conflict was nothing compared to the controversy that erupted due to the actions of then-federation president Luis Rubiales immediately after the World Cup final; see the "Association football" folder of Role-Ending Misdemeanor/Sports, or Rubiales case on The Other Wiki.

Liga F

Founded: 1988
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Copa de la Reina; Supercopa de España
Reigning Champions: Barcelona (9th)
Most Championships: Barcelona (9)

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Austria

Nicknames: Das Team (The Team); Burschen (The Boys); Unsere Burschen (Our Boys)
Kit: Red shirt and socks and white shorts
Association: Austrian Football Association
Current Manager: Ralf Rangnick
Current Captain: David Alaba
Home Stadium: various
FIFA Code: AUT

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Was known as the Wunderteam (Wonder Team) in the 1930s, before Nazi annexation crippled the team from its foundations. However, they still managed to leave a big mark on European footy with their star manager, Ernst Happel, who won two European Cups in 1970 (with Feyenoord) and 1983 (with Hamburg). Along with Switzerland, was one of the joint hosts of the 2008 European Championship.

Austrian Football Bundesliga

Founded: 1974
Number of Teams: 12
Domestic Cups: Austrian Cup
Reigning Champions: Sturm Graz (4th)
Most Championships: Rapid Wien (32)

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Main clubs include:

• Rapid Wien (from Vienna, most nationally successful team, with 32 league trophies, and the club that launched Happel's career as a player), Austria Wien (trailing behind their rivals Rapid, with 23 wins)
• Red Bull Salzburg (fka Austria Salzburg before a controversial takeover and rebrand in 2005), winners of 14 of the last 18 titles, with a streak of 10 snapped by Sturm Graz (see below). However, the Red Bulls always seemed to find ways to lose their Champions League qualifiers in bizarre manners - including conceding two goals at home on Fergie time in the playoffs second leg against Red Star Belgrade in 2018, until they finally reached the group stages for the 2019-20 season through coefficients. They had to play in the final CL qualifying round for 2020–21, but this time made it to the group stage.
• Sturm Graz (a recent national powerhouse with 4 titles, most recently in 2023–24, which ended Salzburg's ten-year title streak)

Belgium

Nicknames: De Rode Duivels, Les Diables rouges, or Die Roten Teufel (Flemish, French, and German for "The Red Devils")
Kit: Red shirt, black shorts and yellow socks
Association: Royal Belgian Football Association
Current Manager: Domenico Tedesco
Current Captain: Kevin De Bruyne
Home Stadium: King Baudouin Stadium, Brussels^note 
FIFA Code: BEL
Trophies Won: 1920 Olympic Gold Medallists

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Despite never really challenging for honours, have usually produced a much better team than you might expect of a small nation deeply divided along linguistic grounds.

In fact, they reached fourth place in the 1986 World Cup, and in early 2016, with the help of highly rated players such as Manchester City centre-back Vincent Kompany and midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, Inter Milan (ex-Roma) midfielder Radja Nainggolan and (ex-Man United) striker Romelu Lukaku, Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen and midfielder Mousa Dembélé, Chelsea attacking midfielder Eden Hazard, Real Madrid (ex-Chelsea) goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois (in fact, a prolific position in Belgian football is the goalkeeper, as legends like Jean-Marie Pfaff and Michel Preud'homme can attest), and Napoli striker/winger Dries Mertens^note , the "Red Devils" briefly reached #1 in the FIFA World Rankings (they entered Euro 2016 at #2, but were thrashed 3–1 in the quarterfinals by tournament surprise package Wales).

A full-score finish in the 2018 World Cup group stage and a subsequent third-place finish cemented their status as a modern revelation and one of the most fearsome national sides in recent years. Co-hosted the 2000 European Championship with the Netherlands.

Belgian Pro League

Founded: 1895
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Belgian Cup; Belgian Super Cup
Reigning Champions: Club Brugge (19th)
Most Championships: Anderlecht (34)

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Notable teams include:

• Anderlecht of Brussels
• Royal Antwerp, whose 2023 title was its first since 1957.
• Reigning champion Club Brugge of Bruges, who made it to the European Cup final in 1978, the furthest a Belgian team has gone in that competition.
• KRC Genk
• KAA Gent
• Standard Liège

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Nicknames: Zmajevi (The Dragons); Zlatni ljiljani (The Golden Lilies)
Kit: White shirt with blue stripes on the right sleeve and torso, blue shorts, white socks
Association: Football Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Current Manager: Sergej Barbarez
Current Captain: Edin Džeko
Home Stadia: Bilino Polje Stadium, Zenica,^note  & Stadion Grbavica, Grbavica^note 
FIFA Code: BIH
Trophies Won: 2018–19 & 2022–23 UEFA Nations League B champions; 2016 Kirin Cup

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Bosnia and Herzegovina entered international football amidst the desolation of the Bosnian War. The country lay in ruins and many young players were killed or wounded during the war—or simply elected to play for other sides (whether due to ethnic intolerance or simply to earn money). Needless to say, it was an unsurprisingly weak team.

Things began to change rapidly for the better after enough time passed for new players to grow up and train without war surrounding them, like Hasan Salihamidžić (formerly from Bayern Munich) and Inter's Edin Džeko (formerly of Manchester City and Roma).

Still, corruption, underfunding and management-team conflicts are endemic to Bosnian national football. Since the mid-00s Bosnia has gained a reputation as a confusing team to play against- keeping up with giants such as Spain, Portugal, France and Germany during away games on one day and getting absolutely obliterated the next.

Due to this inconsistency Bosnia had yet to qualify for a major tournament despite being ranked 21st out of 208 teams in the world rankings. Things are looking up for them, however, as they directly qualified for the 2014 World Cup by winning a qualifying group that also included Greece and Slovakia and, despite being knocked out at Group Stage after losing to Argentina and Nigeria, they recorded a 3-1 win over Iran. They were one of 4 level 2 teams to win their group in the First Nations league, and were the most convincing, with 3 wins and a draw.

Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Founded: 2000
Number of Teams: 12
Domestic Cups: Bosnian Cup
Reigning Champions: Borac (3rd)
Most Championships: Zrinjski (34)

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Notable teams include:

• 2023–24 champs Borac Banja Luka
• The capital's biggest rivals, FK Sarajevo and Željezničar, both of which were also traditional teams in the Yugoslav League
• Velez and Zrinjski - both historic teams from Mostar that were forcibly disbanded by Tito's regime in 1945 before resurrecting after his demise.

Bulgaria

Nicknames: Лъвовете / Lavovete (The Lions); Трикольорите / Trikolyorite (The Tricolours)
Kit: White shirt and socks and green shorts
Association: Bulgarian Football Union
Current Manager: Ilian Iliev
Current Captain: Kiril Despodov
Home Stadium: various
FIFA Code: BUL
Trophies Won: 1931, 1932, & 1976 Balkan Cups

---

While not much of a contender, they managed to assemble a spectacular team which reached the 1994 World Cup semifinals, spearheaded by Hristo Stoichkov, one of the best Eastern European footballers of all time.

Nowadays, the national team has had little success, save for beating Netherlands and quarter finalists elect Sweden in an otherwise poor 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign (where they didn't win any away games, even against Luxembourg) and are nowadays infamous for fascist groups infiltrating into games, such as two heavy home defeats to England in dire Euro 2012 and 2020 qualifying campaigns, despite Bulgarians' pride in their protection of Jewish communities during World War II. After the latter incident, both the national team manager and the head of the Bulgarian Football Union were forced to resign — Bulgaria were also winless at that point, though made the Nations league playoffs, due to its decent performance against Norway, Slovenia and Cyprus, and most teams in the top 2 levels qualifying in the standard manner. The former Union president would get his job back 18 months later… only to resign again after mass protests, political pressure, and continuing national team decline.

First Professional Football League (Първа лига/Parva Liga)

Founded: 1924 (adopted round-robin format 1948)
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Bulgarian Cup; Bulgarian Supercup
Reigning Champions: Ludogorets Razgrad (14th)
Most Championships: CSKA Sofia (31)

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Main clubs include:

• CSKA Sofia (31 league victories, and revealed Stoichkov)
• Levski Sofia (CSKA's main rivals, with 26 titles)
• Ludogorets Razgrad is the currently dominant team, having won the title in every season since first entering the top flight in 2011–12, and most recently clinched their 14th straight title with more than a month left to play in 2024–25.

Croatia

Nicknames: Vatreni (Blazers); Kockasti (Checkered Ones)
Kit: White-and-red checkered shirt, white shorts and blue socks
Association: Croatian Football Federation
Current Manager: Zlatko Dalić
Current Captain: Kiril Despodov
Home Stadium: various
FIFA Code: CRO

---

Arguably the most successful of the national teams created after the breakup of Yugoslavia, if the third place in 1998, the second place in 2018 and the latter team's midfielder Luka Modrić's crowning as the world's best player that year, and another third-place finish in 2022 are any indication.

Croatian Football League

Founded: 1992
Number of Teams: 10
Domestic Cups: Croatian Cup; Croatian Supercup
Reigning Champions: Dinamo Zagreb (25th)
Most Championships: Dinamo Zagreb (25)

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Main teams:

• Dinamo Zagreb (the seven-time reigning league champs, with the 2023–24 title being their 25th in all)
• Hajduk Split (which carried the tradition of one of the main teams in Yugoslavia over to Croatia).

Czechia^*

Kit: Red shirt, white shorts and blue socks
Association: Football Association of the Czech Republic
Current Manager: Ivan Hašek
Current Captain: Tomáš Souček
Home Stadium: various
FIFA Code: CZE
Trophies Won: Euro 1976; 1980 Olympic Gold Medallists

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Saw its better days while under the Czechoslovakian flag (by which they were runners-up in the 1934 and 1962 World Cups, and won the 1976 European Championship and the 1980 Olympic gold medal), but on their own right are not a bad team, as the second place in Euro '96 can attest. Have made every European Championship as of 2016 when independent but only one World Cup, in 2006.

Czech First League

Founded: 1993
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Czech Cup
Reigning Champions: Slavia Prague (8th)
Most Championships: Sparta Prague (14)

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Main teams:

• Viktoria Plzeň (with five titles in the 2010s and one in 2022)
• Slavia Praha of Prague – the reigning champs from 2024–25 (8 since the split of Czechoslovakia, with 14 more wins in Bohemia and Czechoslovakia), and the club Josef Bican, the most prolific striker in the history of the game, has played for much of his career.
• Sparta Praha of Prague – most victorious since the split of Czechoslovakia, with 14 leagues under their belts, as well as 24 more wins in Bohemia and Czechoslovakia

Denmark

Nicknames: De Rød-Hvide (The Red and Whites); Danish Dynamite
Kit: Red shirt and socks and white shorts
Association: Danish Football Association
Current Manager: Kasper Hjulmand
Current Captain: Simon Kjær
Home Stadium: Parken Stadium, Copenhagen^note 
FIFA Code: DEN
Trophies Won: Euro 1992; 1995 FIFA Confederations Cup

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Won the Euro '92 after replacing the war-torn Yugoslavia in the nick of time, and made an inspiring run to the Euro 2020 semifinals after the near-fatal on-field collapse of star Christian Eriksen in their opening match. The women's national team notably ended Germany's 20-plus-year reign over the Women's Euro, taking them down in the 2017 quarterfinals before losing to the homestanding Netherlands in the final.

Superliga

Founded: 1991
Number of Teams: 12
Domestic Cups: Danish Cup
Reigning Champions: FC Midtjylland (4th)
Most Championships: Copenhagen (15)

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Main clubs:

• Brøndby (with 11 national championships, and in which Michael Laudrup and Peter Schmeichel first gained prominence)
• FC Copenhagen (has the most titles in the modern Danish league, with 15 victories^note )
• Reigning champion FC Midtjylland

Georgia

Nicknames: ჯვაროსნები / Jvarosnebi (Crusaders)
Kit: White uniform with red accents
Assocaition: Georgian Football Federation
Current Manager: Willy Sagnol
Current Captain: Guram Kashia
Main Stadium: Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena, Tbilisi^note 
FIFA Code: GEO

---

Alongside Ukraine, they provided much of the USSR's biggest footballing talents, and although their clubs have almost never reached continental prominence they've often had a steady supply of world-class players. Recently, however, their national team has been on a meteoric rise with a new generation of talented players, most prominently Giorgi Mamardashvili and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia; they were promoted from League D in the first edition of the Nations League, and have been a mainstay of League C until the 2022 edition where they dominated their group and were promoted to League B. This earned them a place in the play-offs for Euro 2024, and, after wins over Luxembourg and Greece, they won through these to secure a first ever major tournament appearance. They followed it up by securing a place in the knockout phase with a huge upset of Portugal in the final round of group play (though Portugal was already through to the knockout phase and was resting most of its starters).

Erovnuli Liga

Founded: 1990
Number of Teams: 10
Domestic Cups: Georgian Cup; Georgian Super Cup
Reigning Champions: Dinamo Batumi (2nd)
Most Championships: Dinamo Tbilisi (19)

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Their main club is Dinamo Tbilisi, two-time winners of the Soviet Top League, 19-time Georgian league champions, and winners of the 1981 Cup Winners' Cup.

Greece

Nicknames: To Piratiko (The Pirate Ship); Ethniki (The National); Galanolefki (The Blues and Whites)
Kit: All-white uniform with blue highlights
Association: Hellenic Football Federation
Current Manager: Nikos Papadopoulos (interim)
Current Captain: Anastasios Bakasetas
Home Stadium: Agia Sophia Stadium, Athens^note 
FIFA Code: GRE
Trophies Won: Euro 2004; 1951 & 1991 Mediterranean Games

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Shocked the world by winning the 2004 European Championship over hosts and then-favorites Portugal. But still, they are on an average level at best, and can sometimes be highly inconsistent (a horrific Euro 2016 qualifiers campaign in between a World Cup campaign and one in which they reached the playoffs, and a poor Nations League campaign where Greece both beat, and lost to, all three of their opponents (Finland, Hungary and Estonia, the latter's sole win in the group).

Super League Greece

Founded: 1906 (founded in its current form in 2006)
Number of Teams: 14
Domestic Cups: Greek Cup
Reigning Champions: Olympiacos (48th)
Most Championships: Olympiacos (48)

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In terms of league football, the Greek Super League is sadly synonymous with corruption, to the point that an entirely new Greek word, "paranga", was created to refer to incidents such as match-fixing and bribes.

Main teams:

• AEK Athens (13 titles, most recently in 2023)
• Olympiacos from Piraeus, the reigning champs in 2024–25 and the dominant team in Greek football, with 48 league trophies. Also the first club outside the "big leagues" to win the Conference League, doing so in 2024.
• Panathinaikos from Athens, which reached the 1971 European Cup final, losing it to Johan Cruyff's Ajax, and forms one of the biggest club rivalries in the sport with Olympiacos.
• PAOK Thessaloniki (4 titles, most recently in 2023–24; they claimed their previous title in 2018–19 with an undefeated league season)

Hungary

Nicknames: Magyarok (Magyars); Nemzeti Tizenegy (National Eleven); Trikolór (Tricolours)
Kit: Red shirt, white shorts and green socks
Association: Hungarian Football Federation
Current Manager: Marco Rossi
Current Captain: Dominik Szoboszlai
Home Stadium: Puskás Aréna, Budapest^note 
FIFA Code: HUN
Trophies Won: 1952, 1964, & 1968 Olympic gold medallists

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Don't pose much of a threat these days, but back in the 1950s the "Mighty Magyars" were a fearful force to be reckoned with, having in their ranks legends like Ferenc Puskás and Sandor Kocsis. Everything came crashing down with the loss at the 1954 World Cup final and the suppression of the 1956 rebellion (which led many of their star players to seek refuge in other pastures, notably the aforementioned Puskás and Kocsis who went to Spain and became legends in Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, respectively), and now their legacy consists of three Olympic gold medals (1952, 1964 and 1968) and another World Cup second place (in 1938).

However, they are experiencing a slow renaissance in recent years, culminating with a qualification to the Euro 2020 group stages; despite finishing last in their group they have received plaudits by fans across Europe by putting up good performances against their vastly superior group rivals, including holding both France and Germany to a draw.

Nemzeti Bajnokság I

Founded: 1901
Number of Teams: 12
Domestic Cups: Magyar Kupa
Reigning Champions: Ferencváros (35th)
Most Championships: Ferencváros (35)

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Main clubs:

• Fehérvár FC (runners-up of the 1985 UEFA Cup, and winner of 3 titles).
• Ferencváros (the reigning champions with 6 straight national league titles and 35 in all through 2023–24)
• Kispest Honvéd (whose 1950s team was practically synonymous with the Magical Magyars)

Iceland

Nickname: Strákarnir okkar (Our Boys)
Kit: All blues with red accents on the shirt
Association: Football Association of Iceland
Current Manager: Åge Hareide
Current Captain: Aron Gunnarsson
Home Stadium: Laugardalsvöllur, Reykjavík^note 
FIFA Code: ISL
Trophies Won: 2022 Baltic Cup; 1980 & 1984 Greenland Cups

---

As one of the smallest football nations, the team didn't really do much until they made their first major tournament appearance at Euro 2016 after upsetting the Netherlands. They proceeded to stun people by drawing against Portugal and Hungary before defeating Austria to advance to the knockout round where they upset England.

Just to put this in perspective, England was composed of top-class professional players and a manager who was paid millions. Iceland, by contrast, had several formerly semi-pro players (most played for moderate sides in major overseas leagues, but, whilst the keeper played in a Nordic top flight, he was a part-time music video director) and their manager was a part-time dentist. Even though they were defeated by hosts France right after, they earned the respect and love of football fans everywhere for their performance.

And they followed that up by qualifying directly for the 2018 World Cup, becoming the smallest nation (by population) ever to reach the World Cup final tournament.^note 

Unfortunately, the fairytale didn't last beyond the World Cup: they struggled in Nations League and Euro 2020 qualifying, and didn't get out of the playoffs to join Sweden, Denmark and Finland in the tournament. And then it got worse: a massive scandal further rocked the team, with most of their strongest players being implicated in sexual assault cases and ending up sidelined as a result. This exacerbated the team's downward spiral, and culminated in Strákarnir okkar failing to qualify for the 2022 World Cup altogether after a horrible showing in their qualification group.

Besta deild karla

Founded: 1912
Number of Teams: 12
Domestic Cups: Mjólkurbikarinn; League Cup; Super Cup
Reigning Champions: Breiðablik (3rd)
Most Championships: KR Reykjavik (27)

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Main clubs:

• ÍA (from Akranes, just north of Reykjavík, has won 18 titles, the most recent in 2001)
• KR Reykjavík (the oldest and most successful club with 27 titles)
• Valur Reykjavík (KR's crosstown rivals, and the second most successful club with 22 titles)
• The reigning (2024) champions, however, are Breiðablik, from the Reykjavík suburb of Kópavogur.

Republic of Ireland^*

Nicknames: The Boys in Green / Na buachaillí i nglas
Kit: Green shirt and socks and white shorts
Association: Football Association of Ireland
Current Manager: John O'Shea (interim)
Current Captain: Séamus Coleman
Home Stadium: Aviva Stadium, Dublin^note 
FIFA Code: IRL

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Not counting basketball-obsessed Lithuania, perhaps the least football-mad nation in Europe, at least when it comes to local clubs, with attendance figures for League of Ireland matches being far below those for Gaelic Football and Hurling (though it must be said the British clubs have a lot of fans and when the national team is playing interest increases dramatically).

While its clubs are not continental-level contenders, the national team has achieved some degree of success, qualifying for three World Cups and advancing from the first stage in all three. The team became one of the top teams in Europe after Jack Charlton became its manager, and started bringing in English players with second or third generation Irish backgrounds. The squad is centred around players playing their footy in England (often for moderate PL sides) and Scotland, though some played in their home country's league at youth level (such as Roy Keane, Iain Harte, Seamus Coleman and Kevin Doyle at Cobh, Home Farm, Sligo, and Cork), and two sides from that league have played in the Europa League group stage with Dundalk having nearly made the Champions league at one point.

Fun fact: The team's fans were so well-behaved at the Euro '16 tournament that the Mayor of Paris awarded them the Grand Vermeil, Paris' most prestigious honour.

League of Ireland Premier Division

Founded: 1985
Number of Teams: 10
Domestic Cups: FAI Cup; President's Cup
Reigning Champions: Shelbourne (14th)
Most Championships: Shamrock Rovers (21)

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Main clubs:

• Dublin clubs Bohemians, Shelbourne (the reigning champions), and Shamrock Rovers (the most successful club overall, with 21 titles)
• Derry City - who have played in Ireland's league system since 1985 despite hailing from Northern Ireland, due to security issues caused by the Troubles and frictions with the IFA.
• Dundalk, the most successful club in the current Premier Division era, with 8 titles.

Northern Ireland

Nicknames: Green and White Army; Norn Iron
Kit: Green shirt and socks and white shorts
Association: Irish Football Association^note 
Current Manager: Micheal O'Neill
Current Captain: Jonny Evans
Home Stadium: Windsor Park, Belfast^note 
FIFA Code: NIR

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One of the four Home Nations, its main claim to fame for the sport is being the homeland of George Best, one of the greatest wingers of all time, who unfortunately could not translate to the national team his success with Manchester United in the 1960s. They were also a mid-level team during the 1980s, when they qualified for both World Cups held at the time (reaching the second round in 1982), thanks in no small part to secure performances by their star goalkeeper Pat Jennings, one of the Spurs' all-time greats and record holder for caps for the "Norn Iron" team. Their tradition, however, is marred by sectarianism that goes back even before The Troubles, which has led to riots in league matches, and is something the IFA, along with the new generation of the Green & White Army, is currently working to overturn.

NIFL Premiership

Founded: 2008
Number of Teams: 12
Domestic Cups: IFA Challenge Cup,^note  NI Football League Cup
Reigning Champions: Linfield (57th)
Most Championships: Linfield (57)

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Notable Clubs:

• Larne, which had never before won a top-flight title in over 130 years of play before winning in 2022–23 and repeating the next season.
• Linfield, the reigning champions from 2024–25 and one of the world's record holders for domestic honors, with 101 trophies to their name — and that's only counting first leagues and cups — and Glentoran, both from Belfast, and whose derby (always held at Boxing Day) is consistently the Irish League's main attraction.

Norway

Association: Norwegian Football Federation
FIFA Code: NOR

Men's National Team

Nicknames: Drillos; Løvene (The Lions)
Kit: Red shirt, white shorts and navy socks
Current Manager: Ståle Solbakken
Current Captain: Martin Ødegaard
Home Stadium: Ullevaal Stadion, Oslo^note 

Women's National Team

Current Manager: Gemma Grainger
Current Captain: Maren Mjelde
Trophies Won: 1995 FIFA Womens' World Cup; Euros 1997 & 1993; 2000 Olympic gold medallists

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Not so hot in men's football, but their women's national team became World Champions in 1995 and also won two European Championships. Surprisingly enough, Norway is the only national team in the world that Brazil's men have never defeated — the Norwegians' tally against them consists of 2 victories and 2 draws. Only made 3 World Cups (2 in the 1990s) and one Euros, but won its level 3 Nations League group in the event's first iteration, making their 2020 qualifying pairing with Sweden (who won their group a level above) potentially massive (both meetings were draws). Although they missed out on qualification to the 2022 World Cup by the skin of their teeth, the rise of world-class talents like Martin Ødegaard, Leo Skiri Østigård, and most prominently Erling Haaland has made them a team to look out for.

Eliteserien

Founded: 1937
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Norwegian Cup
Reigning Champions: Bodø/Glimt (4th)
Most Championships: Rosenborg (26)

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Notable Clubs:

• Bodø/Glimt, the dominant team in the current decade, with four titles in five years ('20, '21, '23, '24), and also in the midst of a surprising run to the Europa League semifinals in 2025.
• SK Brann from the city of Bergen
• Lillestrøm SK
• Molde FK
• Trondheim side Rosenborg, who won the league 26 times - 13 of them in a row (1992 to 2004)
• Vålerenga from the capital Oslo
• Viking FK from Stavanger

Poland

Nicknames: Biało-czerwoni (The White-Reds); Orły (The Eagles)
Kit: White shirt and socks and red shorts
Association: Polish Football Association
Current Manager: Michał Probierz
Current Captain: Robert Lewandowski
Home Stadia: Stadion Narodowy, Warsaw,^note  & Stadion Śląski, Chorzów ^note 
FIFA Code: POL
Trophies Won: 1972 Olympic gold medal

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A surprisingly capable nation, bringing to the world talents like Michał Żewłakow, Zbigniew Boniek, Kazimierz Deyna, Włodzimierz Lubański, Jerzy Dudek (Liverpool's goalkeeper in their 2005 Champions League victory), and more recently, Robert Lewandowski (selected by FIFA as the best men's player in the world in 2020), Jakub Blaszczycowski, Miroslav Klose (ethnic Pole), Lukas Podolski (ethnic Pole), Arkadiusz Milik, and Piotr Zielinski. Gold medallist in 1972, and third place in the 1974 and 1982 World Cups. Despite these premises, the accolades are a bit of a meme among football fans for the team's extreme unpredictability and sometimes hilariously poor technical level for a European top-flight. Co-hosted the European Championships in 2012 with Ukraine.

Interestingly, Poland's women are the only national team that the USA has played and never defeated—the two teams drew in their only encounter in 1989.^note 

Ekstraklasa

Founded: 1926
Number of Teams: 18
Domestic Cups: Polish Cup; Polish Super Cup
Reigning Champions: Jagiellonia Białystok (1st)
Most Championships: Legia Warsaw (15)

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Main clubs:

• Regional rivals Górnik Zabrze and Ruch Chorzów (14 total league titles apiece, and the former were runners-up of the 1971 Cup Winners' Cup)
• Lech Poznań (the only Polish club in the top 100 of the UEFA rankings thanks to some impressive European performances, and the club that revealed Lewandowski)
• Legia Warszawa (which broke a tie for most league titles with their 15th in 2021)
• Piast Gliwice, who conquered their first home title in 2018–19 after narrowly escaping relegation the season before.
• The two most recent champions are also first-time champions — Raków Częstochowa in 2023 and Jagiellonia Białystok in 2024.
• Wisła Kraków (with seven national titles in the last 15 seasons)

Romania

Nicknames: Tricolorii (The Tricolours)
Kit: All yellows
Association: Romanian Football Federation
Current Manager: Edward Iordănescu
Current Captain: Nicolae Stanciu
Home Stadia: various
FIFA Code: ROU
Trophies Won: 1929–31, 1933, 1936, & 1977–80 Balkan Cups

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Like Bulgaria, they left quite a mark in world football in the 1990s, thanks to their ace Gheorghe Hagi.

Liga I

Founded: 1909
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Cupa României; Supercupa României
Reigning Champions: FCSB (27th)
Most Championships: FCSB (27)

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Main teams:

• CFR Cluj (eight titles in the current century, including five straight from 2018–22)
• Dinamo Bucharest (Steaua's crosstown rivals and second most successful club in Romania, with 18 titles)
• Now-disbanded Viitorul Constanța (formed in 2009, owned and managed by Hagi himself, won their only top-flight title in 2017 and merged with historic club Farul Constanța to bring them back to the top flight in 2021, followed up by the first championship for the revitalized Farul in 2023).
• Current champions Steaua Bucharest, now known as FCSB due to a bizarre legal dispute in 2014 (1986 European winners, and runners-up in 1989 — on both occasions helmed by Hagi too — and greatest national winners with 27 titles through 2023–24)
• Universitatea Craiova (4 titles)

Russia

Nicknames: Сборная / Sbornaya (The National Team); Наши парни / Nashi parni (Our Boys)
Kit: White shirt and shorts and blue socks
Association: Russian Football Union
Current Manager: Valery Karpin
Current Captain: Aleksandr Golovin
Home Stadia: various
FIFA Code: RUS
Trophies Won: 1960 European Nations' Cup (as USSR); 1956 & 1988 Olympic gold medallists (as USSR)

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Like the Czechs, their prime in football was under the Soviet red flag, with which they won the first European Championship in 1960, plus two Olympic gold medals (1956 and 1988). Also hosted the 2018 World Cup, where they eliminated Spain on penalties before falling to eventual runners-up Croatia the same way.

The Russian national team and all Russian clubs are currently banned from FIFA and UEFA competitions due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Russian Premier League

Founded: 1992
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Russian Cup; Russian Super Cup
Reigning Champions: Zenit Saint Petersburg (10th)
Most Championships: Spartak Moscow & Zenit Saint Petersburg (10 each)

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Main clubs:

• CSKA Moscow (the first club in Russia to win a European competition, the UEFA Cup in 2005).
• Dynamo Moscow (for which Lev Yashin, arguably the greatest goalkeeper in the game, played his entire career)
• Rubin Kazan (first promoted to the top flight in 2003, and have won 2 titles in 2008 and 2009)
• Spartak Moscow (10 league titles)
• Zenit St. Petersburg: The current league champions, who won the 2008 UEFA Cup after upsetting Bayern Munich in the semifinals, but unfortunately have also become infamous for their extremely racist fanbase.

San Marino

Nicknames: La Serenissima
Kit: Blue shirt, shorts and socks
Association: San Marino Football Federation
Current Manager: Roberto Cevoli
Current Captain: Matteo Vitaioli
Home Stadium: San Marino Stadium, Serravalle ^note 
FIFA Code: SMR

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Permanent Butt-Monkey of all nations (aside from some smaller Asian and Oceanian teams that don't garner nearly as many headlines), San Marino are rooted to the bottom of the world and European rankings and are notable for only winning two senior fixtures in their history – both against Liechtenstein – once in a friendly in 2004 and again in a Nations League matchup in 2024. Their most famous player is Andy Selva, who is their all-time top goal scorer, with eight goals, and also scored the only goal in their first-ever win. They were the only nation to not score a goal in the inaugural Nations League, despite the relatively like-minded nature of opponents in the event's format, which saw them lose to Belarus, Luxembourg and Moldova, whereas all other level 4 teams earned at least 2 points.

It must be noted that San Marino is tiny, with roughly the same population as Montana's capital of Helena, and its players all have day jobs outside of football.

Campionato Sammarinese di Calcio

Founded: 1985
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Coppa Titano; Super Coppa Sammarinese
Reigning Champions: Virtus (2nd)
Most Championships: S.P. Tre Fiori (8)

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Scotland

Nicknames: The Tartan Army
Kit: All-navy kit (although traditionally, white shorts and red socks were worn)
Association: Scottish Football Association
Current Manager: Steve Clark
Current Captain: Kenny Dalglish
Home Stadium: Hampden Park, Glasgow^note 
FIFA Code: SCO

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Despite their tradition (played the first international match ever, a 0-0 draw with England in 1872), they are always unlucky in international competitions (they never went past stage one of each World Cup or Euro final they were in, even in the late 70s and early 80s where the team was made up of talented players like Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness), though they had more luck in the first ever Nation's League, getting the sole 3-team group in Level 3 and holding off Albania and Israel, the latter in a winner takes all, 5-goal finale. This gave them a fallback after an abject qualifying group, which began with a 3-0 loss in Kazakhstan, and saw Scotland mathematically ruled out with 3 games still to play. And they took full advantage of it, beating Israel and Serbia (both on penalties) to qualify for their first major tournament in 22 years.

Scottish Premiership

Founded: 2013
Number of Teams: 12
Domestic Cups: Scottish Cup
Reigning Champions: Celtic (11th)^note 
Most Championships: Celtic (11)

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See main Scottish Premiership page for info on league and teams.

Serbia

Nicknames: Орлови / Orlovi (Eagles)
Kit: Red shirt and socks and white shorts
Association: Football Association of Serbia
Current Manager: Dragan Stojković
Current Captain: Dušan Tadić
Home Stadium: various
FIFA Code: SRB
Trophies Won: 1960 Olympic gold medal (as Yugoslavia)

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While relatively new to the game, they are the direct successors of the Yugoslav legacy, which includes the 1960 Olympic gold, two second places at the European Championship (1960 and 1968).

Serbian Superliga

Founded: 2006
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Serbian Cup
Reigning Champions: Red Star (11th)
Most Championships: Red Star (11)

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Main Teams:

• FK Red Star Belgrade (or Crvena Zvezda, if you're a native Serbian speaker) are currently the last club outside of the "Big Seven" countries to win the Champions League with their 1991 European Cup win. They also hold the world record for most points in a top-level league campaign with 108 points in the 2020/21 season — edging out former record holders Celtic by just two points.^note 
• Partizan: Red Star's crosstown Arch-Enemies. Made the 1966 European Cup final, where they lost to Real Madrid.

Sweden

Men's National Team

Nickname: Blågult (The Blue and Yellow)
Kit: Yellow shirt and socks and blue shorts
Association: Swedish Football Association
Current Manager: Jon Dahl Tomasson
Current Captain: Victor Lindelöf
Home Stadium: Strawberry Arena^note 
FIFA Code: SWE
Trophies Won: 1948 Olympic gold medal

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Hosted the 1958 World Cup, only losing the final to Brazil, and the Euro '92. In recent years, despite not relying anymore on their famous star player Zlatan Ibrahimović, they have built up a reputation as a fearsome giant killer, kicking out both the Netherlands and Italy from the 2018 World Cup altogether, almost giving France the same fate, and also being indirectly responsible for Germany's elimination in the group stage despite a last minute 2-1 loss against them. Even though their World Cup run ended with a 2-0 defeat against England in the quarter-finals, they kept up the momentum all the way into Euro 2020, where they surprisingly pipped Spain to first place in their group; they didn't go much further, though, as they were eliminated by Ukraine in the round of 16 through a last-minute goal in extra time. Their form took a nosedive since then, as they were relegated to League C in the 2022/23 edition of the Nations League and failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup.

Women's National Team

Kit: Same as the men's, but with slightly different highlights
Current Manager: Peter Gerhardsson
Current Captains: Kosovare Asilani & Magdalena Eriksson
Home Stadium: Gamla Ullevi^note 
Trophies Won: Euro 1984
Best World Cup Finish: Runner-up, 2003

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The Swedish women's national team has long been one of the world's strongest, though it's had a bad case of Every Year They Fizzle Out. Since its only major trophy in Euro 1984, it's lost in three Euro finals, made the semifinals in four World Cups and lost one WC final, and earned silver medals in two Olympics. Notably, it has its own regular stadium, separate from that of the men—in fact, the two teams don't even play in the same city, with the men playing in the Stockholm-area community of Solna and the women in Gothenburg.

Allsvenskan

Founded: 1924
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Svenska Cupen
Reigning Champions: Malmö FF (27th)
Most Championships: Malmö FF (27)

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Main clubs:

• AIK, Djurgården and Hammarby (all three from Stockholm; the former two have 12 league titles each to their names, the latter just one).
• IFK Göteborg (from Gothenburg, with 18 national league victories)
• Malmö FF (reigning champs; the country's most successful side with 27 league victories through 2024, 1979 European Cup runners-up, and also the club that launched Ibrahimović's career)
• IFK Norrköping (13 league titles)

Damallsvenskan

Founded: 1988
Number of Teams: 14
Domestic Cups: Svenska Cupen
Reigning Champions: Hammarby (2nd)
Most Championships: FC Rosengård (13)

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Most notable as the first fully professional women's football league, having held that status from its formation. This almost certainly contributed to Sweden's status as a women's powerhouse. Prominent teams include:

• Umeå IK, twice Women's Champions League winners and also the club where Marta first came to international prominence.
• FC Rosengård, originally the women's section of Malmö FF before spinning off into the independent LdB FC Malmö and still later amicably merging with the men's FC Rosengård 1917, has the most championships with 13, but has yet to get past the Champions League semifinals. Marta played for Rosengård in the mid-2010s.

Switzerland

Nicknames: A-Team; Nati (National Team); Rossocrociati (Red Crosses)
Kit: Red shirt and socks and white shorts
Association: Swiss Football Association
Current Manager: Murat Yakin
Current Captain: Granit Xhaka^note 
Home Stadium: various
FIFA Code: SUI

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Hosted the 1954 World Cup and Euro 2008, the latter along with Austria. Have a tradition of playing defensive, earning them the World Cup record of time without conceding a goal (559 minutes between 2006 and 2010). However, scored 5 goals to beat Belgium from 2-0 down, and surpass them in head to head standings when they were level on points in their level 1 nations league group, and therefore made the final 4, along with England, Netherlands and Portugal. And in Euro 2020, scored 2 goals in the final 10 minutes to draw level with heavily favored France in the round of 16, survived extra time, and sent Les Bleus home in the penalty shootout. The Nati followed it up at Euro 2024 by sending defending champs Italy packing in the round of 16.

Swiss Super League

Founded: 1898
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Swiss Cup
Reigning Champions: Young Boys (17th)
Most Championships: Grasshopper (27)

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Main clubs:

• FC Basel: winners of 11 titles since the current Super League was established in 2003–04
• Grasshopper from Zürich are the most nationally successful team with 27 league victories; were sadly relegated in 2019 following many tribulations on and off the pitch but returned to the top flight 2 years later. Unusually, as of 2024, they're owned by Major League Soccer side Los Angeles FC.^note 
• Young Boys from the capital of Bern won six of the last seven titles in 2018–2021 and 2023–2024, and also reached a European Cup semifinal in 1959)
• FC Zürich won the other four titles in the Super League era

Türkiye^*

Nicknames: Ay-Yıldızlılar (The Crescent-Stars); Bizim Çocuklar (Our Boys)
Kit: White shirt with a red horizontal band and white shorts and socks
Association: Turkish Football Federation
Current Manager: Vincenzo Montella
Current Captain: Hakan Çalhanoğlu
Home Stadium: various
FIFA Code: TUR

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Showed the world what they are capable of by clinching the 2002 World Cup third place, but have since faded intermittently - their world cup qualifying campaigns have been dire, but they made the semi finals again in Euro 2008 after some stirring comebacks, outdid Netherlands to get to Euro 2016, and have upstaged world champions France in Euro 2020 qualification. Unfortunately, despite having every reason to perform well in the tournament, they crashed and burned in spectacular fashion in the group stage, losing all of their matches in the group. Their luck was better in their Euro 2024 outing, as despite a humiliating own goal costing them a match in the group stage, they made it to the knockout stage, taking out Austria before falling 2–1 to the Netherlands in the quarterfinals.

Süper Lig

Founded: 1959
Number of Teams: 19
Domestic Cups: Turkish Cup; Turkish Super Cup
Reigning Champions: Galatasaray (24th)
Most Championships: Galatasaray (24)

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Main Clubs:

• Turkey's "Big Three" teams all hail from Istanbul:
  • Beşiktaş (16 titles, most recently in 2021)
  • Fenerbahçe (Galatasaray's arch-rivals, based right across the Bosphorus Strait in the Asian part of Istanbul, with 19 titles)
  • Two-time reigning champs Galatasaray (24 league titles, and beat Arsenal to the 2000 UEFA Cup win)
• That Bursaspor won the 2010 national championship in a major upset made them only the second non-Istanbul club to do so; the other was seven-time champion Trabzonspor.
• The only other team to have won a league title is another Istanbul club, Başakşehir (one title in 2020).

Ukraine

Nicknames: Синьо-жовті (The Blue and Yellow); Збірна (The National Team)
Kit: Yellow shirt and socks and blue shorts
Association: Ukrainian Association of Football
Current Manager: Serhiy Rebrov
Current Captain: Andriy Yarmolenko
Home Stadium: various
FIFA Code: UKR

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They provided much of the USSR's greatest talents and maintains a strong tradition after their breakup, most prominently preserved by famed AC Milan striker Andriy Shevchenko. Co-hosted the European Championships in 2012 with Poland. They only qualified for one World Cup, in 2006, but captained by their greatest post-USSR star, Andriy Shevchenko, they acquitted themselves very well, making it to the top 8 and only being stopped by then-future champions Italy in the quarter-finals. Promoted to level 1 in the inaugural Nations League campaign, along with Bosnia, Sweden and Denmark, and became one of the first teams to qualify automatically for Euro 2020, eclipsing Portugal.

Ukrainian Premier League

Founded: 1991
Number of Teams: 16
Domestic Cups: Ukrainian Cup; Ukrainian Super Cup
Reigning Champions: Shakhtar Donetsk (15th)
Most Championships: Dynamo Kyiv (16)

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Notable teams:

• FC Dynamo Kyiv: Won the Soviet championship 13 times and the post-USSR Ukrainian one 16 times, as well as the European Cup-Winners' Cup twice. In 1975, headed by European footballer of the year Oleg Blokhin, Dynamo also won the Supercup.
• Shakhtar Donetsk: Two-time reigning champion and Dynamo Kyiv's archrival, with one Soviet championship and 15 post-Soviet Ukrainian titles through 2023–24, plus the 2009 UEFA Cup. Recently they've had to play in other cities at times due to Russian attacks in the Donbas even before the 2022 Russian invasion.

Wales^note 

Nicknames: Y Dreigiau/The Dragons
Kit: All-red
Association: Football Association of Wales
Current Head Coach: Rob Page
Current Captain: Aaron Ramsey
Home stadium: Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff^{note  Additionally…}
FIFA Code: WAL
Trophies Won: 1906–07, 1919–20, 1923–24, 1927–28, 1932–33, 1933–34, 1936–37, 1938–39 (shared), 1951–52 (shared), 1955–56 (shared), 1959–60 (shared), & 1969–70 (shared) British Home Championships.

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See British Footy Teams for more information on the Welsh national team and Welsh clubs

Historically something of a joke and the weakest of the so-called 'Home Nations', partly because the near religious reverence that the Welsh have historically held for rugby.

Between the World Cup of 1958 (which they were knocked out of by a young fellow named Pelé) and Euro 2016, they failed to qualify for a single major tournament, but still produced a number of great players: legendary Liverpool striker and the club's all time top scorer Ian Rush; Everton goalkeeper Neville Southall; Manchester United winger Ryan Giggs, later the national team manager; and longtime Real Madrid winger Gareth Bale, who took over from Rush as the national team's top goal scorer in 2018 and retired after captaining Cymru in the 2022 World Cup.

Ranked 117th in 2011, they have rapidly improved, only stalling after the tragic suicide of their young manager Gary Speed. Fiercely talented players like Bale and Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey, combined with a strong team ethos, led to a meteoric rise, breaking into the top 10 in July 2015 for the first time after being unbeaten in Euro 2016 qualifying, beating highly rated then World #2 team, Belgium.

This proved a mere prelude to an astonishing Euro 2016; crushing Russia 3–0 in the group stage, beating Northern Ireland in the Round of 16, and registering another win over Belgium (this time a 3–1 thrashing) before they ran out of steam against a fortunate Portugal in the semi-finals. However, their efforts made them, with Iceland, briefly the sweethearts of a continent.

Sadly, despite a heroic effort, they narrowly missed out on qualification for the 2018 World Cup. They qualified for Euro 2020, and went down valiantly in the Round of 16 to a fired-up Denmark.

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While Wales has its own league, the two best teams, Swansea and Cardiff, play in the English leagues. Swansea got to the Premier League for the first time in 2011, and established themselves as an upper mid-table side, winning the League Cup in 2013. However, a disastrous 2017–18 season saw them relegated. Cardiff, by contrast, were promoted in 2013, then relegated the following year, but eventually made it back for 2018–19, only to cruelly rebound back down with a game to spare and leave the top flight without a Welsh side for the first time since 2011.

Another Welsh team that plays in the English leagues is Wrexham, one of the oldest clubs in the world which had some good campaigns in the 1970s (up to and including making the quarter finals of the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1976), and famous wins over well-established teams, like their eliminating of Arsenal in the third round of the 1991-92 FA Cup. After being acquired by Deadpool a.k.a. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, they returned to the English Football League (specifically League Two) by winning the 2022–23 National League title, earning 111 points. They followed it up with a second-place finish in League Two, securing automatic promotion to League One. They didn't stop there, finishing second in League One to gain automatic promotion to the Championship, making them the first club ever to gain three straight promotions within England's top five divisions.

Cymru Premier

Founded: 1992
Number of Teams: 12
Domestic Cups: Welsh Cup
Reigning Champions: The New Saints (17th)
Most Championships: The New Saints (17)

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Notable teams:

• Connah's Quay Nomads claimed the 2019–20 and 2020–21 titles, with the first ending the 8-year title streak of the next team mentioned in this space.
• The dominant team in recent years has been The New Saints or TNS, which have claimed 12 Cymru Premier (formerly known as the Welsh Premier League) titles in 14 seasons after narrowly claiming the 2024–25 title. TNS are themselves an example of a cross-border team, as they represent both the village of Llansantffraid and the town of Oswestry just across the Wales-England border, and play home matches in Oswestry.^note