Capital cities without Champions league football

Sometimes being based in the capital city can help a club to compete on a greater stage be it at home or abroad. One only has to look at Madrid for a prime example of this with both Real Madrid and Atlético competing for honours. Paris with their sole PSG becoming the dominant force in France, Lisbon with the powerhouses of Benfica and Sporting CP and of course London that is home to five premier league teams this season.

With this in mind a quick glance at the teams playing in the champions league in the past has lead to me coming up with this blog post. What capital cities are absent from the champions league on a regular basis. I developed a criteria for this question because there are of course countries who have never had a team qualify for the group stage, Ireland, Iceland and the Baltic countries being a few. To qualify for this I also discarded countries who had less than five qualifications in the past twenty-three years since the group stage was introduced. This is what I came up with, some you might be shocked with.

Ankara, Turkey:

This might not actually be a surprise at all but the capital of Turkey has never had a team qualify for the group stage of the champions league. Not too surprising given that the capital hasn't even had a a title winner since the Super League was introduced back in 1959. Ankara hasn't even come close to breaking that glass ceiling. In fact the last time an Ankara club finished in the top three in Turkey was back in 2002-03 when Gençlerbirliği finished nineteen points off winners Beşiktaş. The following season however Gençlerbirliği did reach the last 16 of the UEFA cup in the city's best European run to date. 
This season Osmanlispor are currently top of their Europa league group containing Villarreal, Steaua and FC Zürich with a terrific chance of qualifying for the last 32.

Oslo, Norway:

Norway gets onto this list because of Rosenborg's exploits in the late 90s and early 00s when they regularly competed in the group stage. Rosenborg are based in the northern city of Trondheim and their dominance of the domestic league in that time prevented any progress for Oslo to get a team into the group stage of the premier club competition. With Rosenborg's European performances the league actually had two champions league places in 1998 and Oslo still couldn't get a team in with Molde being the lucky beneficiaries that season. 

When Vålerenga did break Rosenborg's domination in 2005 they couldn't get through the qualifying stages the following year going out to Czech side Mladá Boleslav and that is as close Oslo have got to getting into the group stage. 

Edinburgh, Scotland:

Like Ankara this isn't much of a shock really considering the dominant powers of Scotland reside in Glasgow. However unlike Ankara, Edinburgh has had a side in the qualifiers. That team was Hearts in 2006 after they split the Old firm in 2005-06 to finish 2nd. Hearts managed to negotiate the obstacle of Bosnian champions Široki Brijeg before they succumbed to AEK Athens in the final qualifying round, going down 5-1 on aggregate. 

The capital's other side Hibernian haven't threatened to end the barren run with a couple of UEFA cup appearances the some total of their European adventures. 

Bern, Switzerland:

This might shock you. The capital of Switzerland, regular participants in the champions league has never had a team reach the group stage. The city's big team BSC Young Boys did appear in the qualifiers in 2010-11 but they couldn't get the better of Tottenham in the final qualifying round. Since then the club have had two shots of trying to end the run but fell at the 3rd qualifying round in 2015-16 and the play-off round this season. In 2004-05 they fell in the qualifying rounds to Crvena Zvezda. 

The club haven't won the domestic title since 1986 and in a league such as Switzerland's where multiple sides getting into the group stage doesn't happen, a title win is what's needed for Bern to finally grace the group stage of the champions league. 

Minsk, Belarus:

Like Norway with Rosenborg, Belarus gets into this list courtesy of BATE Borisov's regular qualifications. BATE are from a city an hour away from the capital of Minsk and to date the capital hasn't been able to get a side into the group stage. Given BATE's utter domination of the league the capital hasn't had a domestic title winner since 2004 when Dinamo Minsk were top dogs in the country. Belarus only gets one team into the champions league and with BATE's current streak of eleven titles it's difficult to see Minsk ending their run of being absent from the group stage. 

It's the Europa league however where they have had a bit more luck with Dinamo qualifying for the group stage there on two occasions (2014-15 & 2015-16). 

Other mention:

Above were the capital cities without a qualification at all. There is one capital with a solitary one qualification that might have you scratching your head and that is the German capital of Berlin. 

The city of Berlin has only had one qualification since the group stage was introduced in 1994-95. That came in 1999-00 when Hertha BSC came through the qualifiers, defeating Anorthosis of Cyprus. They then reached the second group stage after a top two finish in a group containing Chelsea, AC Milan and Galatasaray. A last place finish in the second group stage with Barcelona, Porto and Sparta Praha ended their run and to date is the last time Berlin has played host to champions league group stage football. 

The French cup and it's unique aspect

Coupe de France
source: getfrenchfootballnews.com

The seventh round of the French cup takes place this weekend and as as usual it has it's unique aspect in full flow. This round of the French cup not only features sides as far down as the ninth tier of the football league system but offers a unique aspect in including sides from the various dependencies that make up France's "L'outre mer". The domestic cup winners of New Caledonia and Tahiti being joined by sides from Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion and Saint Martin.

The inclusion of these sides does obviously open up some quite eye boggling travel distances. To combat this the French football association (FFA) offers mainland sides the chance to apply to be eligible to face the overseas teams. To break it down, the sides that express interest in travelling are then put into the section of the seventh round where they can be drawn against any of the overseas teams. The make-up of the travel budget for the overseas teams remains unclear but I'd be amazed if there isn't some sort of grant from the FFA, their local leagues and football associations to travel the vast distances. Likewise for the mainland teams open to travelling.

The French overseas territories
source: meteofrance.fr

The draw for the seventh round is made in two parts with the overseas section made first. As mentioned in the previous paragraph it's pitting sides who have applied to travel for their cup games with the overseas sides and of course which overseas teams make the journey to the mainland. The main part of the seventh round draw being made the following day.

The overseas section of the draw threw up the following:

• CS Moulin (Guadeloupe) vs FC Fleury 91
• AS Magenta (New Caledonia) vs Pau FC
• Club Franciscain (Martinique) vs FC Lunéville
• ASC Le Geldar (French Guiana) vs SC Selongey
• JS Saint-Pierroise (Réunion) vs Sainte-Geneviéve Sports 
• Avoine OCC vs AS Excelsior (Réunion)
• Rodez vs FC Mtsapéré (Mayotte)
• ASM Belfort vs Phare du Canal (Guadeloupe)
• US Avranches vs AS Dragon (Tahiti)
• FC Mulhouse v US Matoury (French Guiana)
• Tarbes v Golden Lion FC (Martinique)

Last season all the overseas sides were eliminated by the time the competition reached the last 32 with Réunion side US Saint-Marienne bowing out to Gazélec Ajaccio, who were in Ligue 1 at the time. No overseas team has ever won the French cup nor has any progressed beyond the last 64. Of the overseas teams only five in the history of the French cup have progressed two ties in the same season. So reaching the last 32 remains as the glass ceiling yet to be breached. Could it happen this season? well history suggests no but given that we are talking about 2016 I guess we can't completely rule out a strong performance from the overseas teams. The Ligue 1 teams don't typically enter the cup until the ninth round (or last 64) so the opportunity of getting a plum tie against the big names of PSG, Marseille, Lyon or Saint-Étienne isn't entirely out of the question. 

A popular question that might rise from this is the hypothetical situation of an overseas team winning the French cup, do they get to play in the Europa League?. The answer to this is unfortunately no. Given that some of these overseas teams come from FIFA members it renders them ineligible for European competition. Some of the sides such as the Réunion representatives have taken part in the African champions league while the Tahitians and New Caledonians are regularly involved in the Oceania champions league. To enter European competition a team to my knowledge has to be affiliated with a UEFA nation and competing in the structure within that said nation, none of the other overseas teams are competing in the French league system. 

What makes this aspect more interesting is that the likes of Réunion, New Caledonia and Tahiti are FIFA members. So this could happen with say the Dutch cup including sides from say Aruba and Curacao or even the likes of England, Spain and Portugal going down a similar road.
It's safe to say that while the FA cup in England remains the oldest cup competition in the world, the French cup is surely the biggest. From researching this blog post a figure of the amount of teams that took part one season was north of seven thousand. A quite incredible figured given that the FA cup most years hovers in and around the eight hundred mark.

SO for the weekend that's in it, Bon chance to the overseas teams and hopefully one at least breaks new ground in getting through to the last 32.