“Wolfsburg just won their 10th DFB-Pokal Frauen in a row. Is that a record for a cup competition?” wonders Kári Tulinius.
Wolfsburg’s women’s team have dominated the German Cup to a staggering degree. They won it this year without conceding a goal, winning 2-0, 5-0, 3-0, 9-0 and finally 2-0 against Bayern Munich in the final earlier this month. Last season, they conceded only three goals en route to glory, but compensated by scoring 27 in five games. In fact it’s four years since they failed to win a DFB-Pokal game by at least two goals; they won the 2020 final on penalties after a thrilling 3-3 draw with SGS Essen.
Wolfsburg’s last defeat in the competition was in November 2013, when Kerstin Garefrekes scored the only goal of the game for FFC Frankfurt in the quarter-finals. Monstrously impressive, we’re sure you’ll agree, and comfortably a record for Europe’s big leagues. But not overall.
FC Gintra won the Lithuanian Women’s Cup 12 seasons in a row between 2005 and 2016. Meanwhile in men’s football, in a principality between Switzerland and Austria, the cup doesn’t have much romance. “FC Vaduz won the Liechtenstein Football Cup every year between 1998 and 2011, a 14-year span,” writes Cam in Hangzhou. “After losing on penalties to the mighty USV Eschen/Mauren in 2012 they are now on a run of 10 in a row (it was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of Covid).”
In all, FC Vaduz have been in the last 28 finals, winning 26 of them, and overall they’ve won the competition 50 times. Yep, that’s also a record.
But that’s not the longest streak we could find. When we say ‘we’, we mean Knowledge regular Dirk Maas. “SFK 2000 have won every final of the Bosnian Women’s Cup since 2006, making it 17 wins in a row,” writes Dirk. “They can make it 18 in a row if they beat ZFK Radnik Bumerang in this year’s final.”
Finally, for the record, here’s a full list of the longest winning streaks for the big five leagues (men and women).
10 Germany (VfL Wolfsburg, 2015-24)
6 France (Lyon Féminin, 2012-17)
4 England (Arsenal Women, FA Cup, 2006-09; Liverpool Men, League Cup, 1981-84; Manchester City Men, League Cup, 2018-21)
3 Italy (Juventus Men, 2015-18), Spain (Athletic Bilbao Men, 1930-33; Barcelona Men, 2015-18)
Sweeping up domestically, from top to bottom
“Leicester City have won every domestic honour this century except League Two. Anyone done any better?” asks Philip Vial.
Yep, and they also wear blue. “Following their re-establishment in 2012, Rangers won Scottish League Two in 2013, League One in 2014, the Championship in 2016, the Premiership in 2021, the Challenge Cup in 2016, the FA Cup in 2022 and the League Cup in 2024,” writes Mike McCarthy. “I think this constitutes a clean-sweep of the domestic board?”
For the closest thing to a full house in England, you have to go back to the 20th century and across the M69. “In a 31-season period from 1958-59 to 1988-89, Wolverhampton Wanderers won all four divisional titles, the FA, League, Associate Members and Texaco Cups and the Charity Shield,” writes Michael Haughey. “I’m sure Wulfrunians would rather have avoided dropping into the third and fourth divisions and nearly going out of business but they’re in the top flight now.
The biggest aggregate league drubbings (3)
In the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at the highest aggregate victory in home-and-away league fixtures. We were pretty impressed with last week’s offering, a 37-0 trouncing, until we saw this tweet. “I have now found two scorelines of 60+ in women’s top divisions,” writes @BenJaneson. “In the 2014-15 Slovenian Women’s League, ZNK Pomurje defeated NS Ajdovscina 62–0 (38–0 at home and 0–24 away). In the 2014 Chilean Nacional Fútbol Femenino, Colo-Colo defeated Ovalle 60–0 (36–0 at home and 0–24 away).”
Rodri and a record that is hard to beat
In last week’s Knowledge we also looked at the longest unbeaten runs in all competitions for players at a new club. This particular rabbit hole had a tangent that led us to Rodri, who was about to equal the record for the longest unbeaten run – newbie or not – for a player at a club in Europe’s big five leagues. It turns out it could be a record for any league, not just a biggie, and Rodri broke it when Manchester City beat West Ham on Sunday. Thanks to Dirk Maas for finding this link on the IFFHS site, which allows us to list what nobody is calling the individual invincibles.
74 Rodri (Manchester City, 2023-24)
73 Demetrio Albertini (Milan, 1989-93), Paolo Maldini (Milan, 1991-93)
66 Charlie Shaw (Celtic, 1915-17), Joseph Dodds (Celtic, 1917-19)
64 Alec McNair (Celtic, 1916-18)
63 John Browning (Celtic, 1921-23)
Celtic didn’t lose many games after the war, eh. Lurking just below are some familiar names, including Sebastiano Rossi (59 games, Milan, 1991-93), Ricardo Carvalho (58, Chelsea, 2006-08) and Viv Anderson (57, Nottingham Forest, 1977-78).
Knowledge archive
“Has a team ever won a league title having not topped the table until the final day of the season?” wondered Andrew Abrahams in 2012.
The case of Devon Loch, the horse owned by the Queen Mother who inexplicably capitulated 40 yards from the winning post in the 1956 Grand National, was brought into the football lexicon by Sir Alex Ferguson and is now often cited when a team who have led the table for much of the season start to stutter in the final fixtures. But E.S.B, the horse who benefited from Loch’s demise on that Aintree afternoon in 1956, is rarely mentioned.
There were at least three major examples of football E.S.Bs. The first, which was pointed out by Sascha Eggers, involves one of the most dramatic title races of all. Bayern Munich had not been top at any stage of the 1985-86 Bundesliga season until they went above Werder Bremen on goal difference on the final day. But that tells only half the story.
In the penultimate game Werder hosted Bayern knowing that a victory would give them the title. With the score 0-0 after 88 minutes, Bayern’s Soren Lerby was harshly penalised for handball (the ball seemed to hit him in the face). Up stepped Michael Kutzop, who had scored eight out of eight from the spot that season, and 22 in a row at his previous club Kickers Offenbacher. His plan was to wait for the keeper to move, so Bayern’s Jean-Marie Pfaff stood still. Kutzop hit the outside of the post. Bayern lived to fight another day – four days, in fact, when they took the title by routing Borussia Mönchengladbach while Bremen, who needed only a point, lost at VfB Stuttgart. Here’s a video of that amazing denouement in Bremen.
A second example came from England. “I think I’m right in saying the mighty Burnley’s one and only league championship win was taken on the last day after never having led the table during the season,” wrote John Steinmetz. You are both right and wrong, John. Burnley have won the old First Division title on two occasions, in 1920-21 and again in 1959-60, but the latter of these successes was achieved right at the death.
Harry Potts’s side briefly topped the league very early in the season, although this was solely because they played their second fixture 24 hours before most of the other teams. They then drew level on points with Tottenham and Wolves at the top of the table in mid-April but remained in third spot due to an inferior goal average.
After Tottenham won at Molineux in their penultimate game of the season, however, Burnley knew that five points from their remaining three games would guarantee the title. A victory at Birmingham was followed by a goalless draw at home to Fulham, which meant Potts’s side had to win at Maine Road in the final game of the season. It was played on the bank holiday Monday, two days after all the other sides had finished their fixtures.
There were plenty of Wolves fans in the capacity crowd in Manchester hoping for a City win which would see their side crowned champions but goals from Brian Pilkington and Trevor Meredith secured a 2-1 win for Burnley and sent the title to Turf Moor. A perfectly timed run.
Bayern and Burnley were joined on this list by Barcelona. Their Dream Team famously won three consecutive titles between 1992 and 1994, having started the final day of each season in second place. In the first of those, the 1991-92 season, they had not been top all season but stole the title when Real Madrid blew a 2-0 lead away to Tenerife.
Can you help?
“During a Friday afternoon You Are The Ref binge, two of the answers included sending off a player in the dressing room after they had left the field. The advice is then to, ‘Request a PA announcement to tell the crowd what has happened.’ Has this ever happened?” wonders Joe Ward.
@TheKnowledge_GU When Broughty Athletic ended their Midlands League season on 103pts, Dundee North End were 23pts behind with 8 to play. North End have won all 8, incl. 5-0 vs 3rd-placed Lochee Utd, to finish on 104pts. Surely no team has ever made up more points to win a title?
— Mark Nixon (@fatbadger442) May 18, 2024
“Queens Park have won the Scottish Cup 10 times but have never won the league,” notes Sean Campbell. “Have any other clubs won more major domestic or European trophies without winning a top division league title?”
@TheKnowledge_GU this ever happened in the English top flight? https://t.co/qhqSCo7En3
— Stevy Toal (@stevytoal) May 19, 2024
“Looking at La Liga’s table, I noticed that the top eight have nothing to play for heading into their final match, as there’s at least four points separating each position. The lowest is technically Valencia in ninth given they’re only three points above Alavés in 10th. Starting from first place, has there ever been more teams with nothing to play for going into the last game of a season?” asks Francis Keenan.
Bayer Leverkusen and VfB Stuttgart in 2023-24, like Leicester City in 2015-16, improved on their previous seasons' points tally by 40.
— Ben (@BenJaneson) May 21, 2024
Which other clubs have improved on their previous seasons' points tally by 40 or more (playing the same amount of matches, in the same league)?
Mail us your questions or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU.
