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European league championships

Big leads can sometimes disappear. Are Chelsea, Lyon, Dinamo... already champions?

Ozren Podnar reports...

Nine seasons ago, Manchester United lay 12 points behind Newcastle with 13 rounds to go. Guess who won the championship?

Chelsea's nine point advantage over Wigan (of all people) looks frightening, above all because it is backed by a high-quality team, coach, owner, you name it.

In France, Olympique Lyon also lead by nine points from Bordeaux. In Croatia, Dinamo Zagreb are 12 points clear over the second-placed Varteks. League races decided?

Probably, but bigger miracles have taken place. The pursuers must not lose hope. Manchester United did not when they found themselves 12 points adrift from Newcastle with 13 matches to go back in 1995/96.

In fact, Cantona, Becks and friends finished the title race with five points more than the Magpies.

Memories are still fresh of how Monaco lead Lyon by 10 points midway through the championship in the 2003/04 season. In fact, they had just beaten the reigning champions 3-0 to establish that apparently unassailable advantage. In the end, Lyon carried away the title, four points ahead of Monaco.

So it can be done and it has been done.

A crazier thing happened in the same season in the Spanish League, although it did not decide the title winner. Barcelona caught up with Real Madrid and finished above them in second place after trailing by 18 (eighteen!) points at one stage, with the same number of matches played. Valencia were crowned champions, so that little piece of magic by Barcelona went unnoticed outside of Spain.

In the Premiership there are 81 more points to play for until the end of the title race. In France's Le Championnat, there are 75 points to be won or lost. What's a mere nine points compared to that?

Today, when a win is awarded with three points, such a deficit can be wiped out in a mere three rounds.

Even in the past, when a win carried just two points, big turnarounds used to happen.

In the former Yugoslavia, in 1951, Dinamo Zagreb squandered a five-point lead with three rounds to go and the title went to Red Star. Similarly, Barcelona dropped six points (equivalent to today's nine points) in the final five games of the 1981/82 season, with Real Sociedad the beneficiary. Werder Bremen handed the 1986 title to Bayern Munich after gambling away four points (which would be six today) with four games to go.

Big turnarounds in national leagues

Here's a reminder of the craziest turnarounds in the league championships

A. Two points for a win

B. Three points for a win

Ozren Podnar

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