From Bodo to Brentford – ranking this season’s biggest overachievers

Bodo/Glimt must be the most romantic story in European football in decades.

If they reach the Champions League quarter-finals this week it would be a fairytale up there with Jose Mourinho’s Porto winning it in 2004. Just this one is forged in ice rather than hot-blooded knee slides…

You’ll likely know them by now, tucked away in the Arctic fjords, where the winds sweep down off snow-capped mountains and fans wear jumpers as woolly as their scarves. They are local heroes in brilliant yellow who have risen from the brink of bankruptcy to balling like a frost-kissed Brazil.

The value of Bodo’s largely local squad may be less than Manchester City paid for Erling Haaland, yet the Norwegians count the 10-time English champions among a reel of recent scalps that also includes Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan and Sporting.

But Bodo’s toothbrush-waving “fish hippies” are not the only fans enjoying underdog stories this season, across Europe clubs are battling above their board.

Now what makes a good underdog story? We’re looking for those who have achieved beyond their means, ruffled the feathers of the competition’s elite. Disruptors, innovators, those offering something different.

Como 1907 may well boast the richest owners in Italian football – where’s the romance in that, you ask – but they are hardly steeped in Serie A heritage.

Whether through investment, savvy recruitment or the ability to build a brand off their iconic lakeside location, they have risen from the fourth tier less than a decade ago to contending for a Champions League spot.

I Biancoblu are also playing arguably the sexiest football in Italy this season, perhaps unsurprisingly given their head coach is Cesc Fabregas, recently dubbed a “phenomenon” by former Serie A midfielder Massimo Orlando.

From Lombardy to Galicia, the same principles apply when it comes to employing an attractive approach, with Celta Vigo‘s progress revolving around putting their trust in youth. Only Athletic Club, Real Sociedad and Barcelona have given more minutes to club-trained prospects in La Liga this term.

Yet boyhood Celta fan Claudio Giraldez’s side – currently sixth – are on course for the club’s best finish in a decade, and have reached the Europa League knockouts for the first time since a semi-final defeat by Manchester United in 2017.

Gaze across the continent and you’ll find other over-performers in France, Germany and Switzerland – Lens, grappling for a first title since 1998, have spent a large chunk of the season on top of Ligue 1, although missed the chance to retake the lead from Paris St-Germain in a surprise defeat at Lorient on Saturday.

Hoffenheim, who have not enjoyed a top-five finish since 2018, are having a stellar season in the Bundesliga and sit third behind Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen.

Just over a three-hour drive south, skirting the Rhine until you hit the Swiss border, heading into an Alpine gateway towards the turquoise waters of Lake Thun, footballing folklore is being scribed.

FC Thun haven’t won a trophy in the club’s 128-year history – even though they did reach the Champions League group stages in 2005, losing twice against Arsenal – and were only promoted last summer, but are taking the Super League by storm.

Literally on Saturday, it turned out, as their 10,000-capacity Stockhorn Arena was hit by a blizzard hours before they put five goals past Grasshoppers, the side to have won the most titles, to move 17 points clear at the summit.

Levski Sofia, meanwhile, do have a rich history of silverware, with only city rivals CSKA winning more than their 26 Bulgarian titles – it’s just that the last one came almost two decades ago.

That can be largely attributed to the rise of Ludogorets, the most-dominant club in Europe, who have won 14 on the trot since earning promotion to the top flight under billionaire owner Kiril Domuschiev.

As Bulgarian journalist Teodor Borisov said: “If you have a child who was born in 2012, they have never seen anything in their life outside of Ludogorets being champions!”

Can we include an entire division here? Well, we’re going to, because Poland’s top-flight Ekstraklasa is both sublime and ridiculous this season – chaotic, competitive and overachieving in compelling narratives.

With nine games remaining, just 19 points separate top and bottom-placed 18th, meaning theoretically anyone could still win the title or go down.

Legia Warsaw, Poland’s most-successful club, are on a six-game unbeaten run but find themselves in the relegation zone alongside Widzew Lodz, who last summer spent 20 times more on transfers than current leaders Zaglebie Lubin.

Zaglebie, who have twice been down to the second tier and back since last clinching the title, lead on goal difference from Lech Poznan, who beat them on Sunday, but Jagiellonia Bialystok – who beat Fiorentina in the Conference League last week – can jump to the same points by winning their game in hand.

The headline-grabber from a rare recent interview with Brentford owner Matthew Benham was, aside from talking up Everton striker Beto, that the Bees missed opportunities to sign Eberechi Eze, Michael Olise, Omar Marmoush and Mykhailo Mudryk.

Those attackers all leaped out on Benham and Brentford’s data-led scouting models, which also helped them discover Bryan Mbeumo and Yoanne Wissa, who were cashed in on last summer for more than £100m profit.

The beauty of the approach is Brentford already had a ready-made goalscoring replacement in Igor Thiago.

Likewise, when long-serving boss Thomas Frank left for Tottenham the club promoted from within – the Bees’ algorithm doesn’t exclusively serve up managers with great hair but those who can seamlessly slot in.

North of the border, another revolution with its roots in betting analytics is in progress.

Hearts have benefited from the influence of Tony Bloom, whose use of Jamestown Analytics helped establish Brighton as a Premier League side and took Union Saint-Gilloise from the second tier to Belgian champions.

Bloom said when he invested in Hearts he wanted to “disrupt” the Old Firm dominance and saw the Edinburgh club winning the title within a decade.

Derek McInnes’ side stuttered at the weekend but hope to deliver on that promise a lot earlier than planned to take the Premiership crown away from Glasgow for the first time since 1985. The Jambos last won it themselves in 1960.

And so back to Bodo. It shouldn’t be possible in today’s climate for a team from the Arctic with an 8,000-capacity, artificially turfed stadium to be muscling in on Europe’s elite, never mind one who less than a decade ago were in Norway’s second tier.

But if Kjetil Knutsen’s team can hold on to their 3-0 first-leg lead against Portuguese giants Sporting on Tuesday, they will proudly stand among the continent’s top eight having not even started their own league season yet. A miracle sketched in the Northern Lights.