The success of a football club is measured in the number of national titles that it has won, but for a club to be truly considered among the elite, it has to win the Continental crown. The aura that Real Madrid has would never have been there had it not won those European Cups five years in a row since the competition’s inception.
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Similarly, Barcelona trouncing one English club after another over the previous European seasons gave it the credibility for being considered the best club in the world.
But there have been some major clubs in Europe who have never been lucky when it came to winning a European title. Even a victory in the second-tier Europa League is considered to be a reflection of the club’s European pedigree, as observed from the hoopla surrounding Liverpool’s victory over Borussia Dortmund in the Europa League quarter-finals.
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This list takes a look at seven major European clubs never to have won a European title - be it the Champions League or the Europa League.
P.S: Defunct competitions like the Cup Winners Cup and the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup are not taken into consideration
1) Arsenal
Arsene Wenger and co can crow about Arsenal being a European giant any number of times, but the fact remains that despite its stellar record of qualifying for the Champions League, Arsenal have never gone on to win the competition. In fact, they have never even won the second-tier UEFA Cup/Europa League either.
To their credit, they have won an Inter-Cities Fairs cup and a UEFA Cup Winners Cup, but the big two have always eluded the London side. They have made an appearance in the final of both competitions, though.
Barcelona rallied to beat Thierry Henry’s Gunners 2-1 at the Stade de France in the final of the 2005-06 UEFA Champions League and Arsenal haven’t been close since. The London side also reached a UEFA Cup final in 1999-00 against an unfancied Galatasaray side but were narrowly beaten in a penalty shootout with both Patrick Vieira and Davor Suker missing from the spot.
Consider the fact that newly relegated Aston Villa have won a European Cup and you can put Arsenal’s plight into perspective.
2) AS Roma
No surprise in seeing AS Roma in this list; the Giallorossi have been chokers in not only European competitions but also in the Serie A as well. After their legendary title win in 2001 brought about by the goals of Argentine goal scoring machine Gabriel Batistuta, Roma have finished runners up a record eight times in the Serie A without winning the title.
Roma have won the domestic league only three times, whereas Juventus have claimed the same 31 times!
They would play a European Cup and a UEFA Cup final each, though. The Champions League final in 1983-84 provided much heartache for the Eternal City side as they saw Liverpool beat them in a penalty-shootout in a match that was played in their own Stadium – the Stadio Olimpico.
Local rivals Inter Milan would use its European pedigree to deny Roma a first title in the UEFA Cup in the 1990-91 final as the Nerazzurri won the two-legged match 2-1 on aggregate.
Roma’s only European title would come in the 1960-61 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup as Birmingham City were beaten 2-0 at the Olimpico to complete a 4-2 aggregate victory.
3) Sporting Lisbon
One of the ‘Tres Grandes’ or the Big Three in Portuguese football, Sporting Lisbon has consistently failed to match the European exploits of the other giants of the league, Benfica and Porto. While the latter duo have numerous European titles in their cabinet, Sporting's only European honour is a Cup Winners Cup victory in 1963-64 which they achieved via a 1-0 victory over MTK Budapest in the final.
Since then Sporting have regularly fallen short in European competitions, but reached the final of the UEFA Cup in 2005 where they lost 3-1 to CSKA Moscow despite playing at their home ground. Sporting do have multiple semi-final appearances in the UEFA Cup/Europa League, but could never win it all.
The 18 time Primeira Liga Champions’ first appearance at the new UEFA Champions league knock-out stages was in the 2008-09 season where they were thrashed 12-1 on aggregate by Bayern Munich.
4) Lyon
The powerhouses of French football in the 21st century before oil money came to elevate Paris St Germain, Olympique Lyon won a French record seven league titles in a row from 2002.
Similar to PSG's attempts of late, Lyon wanted to translate their success to European competitions as well. A well-balanced side spearheaded by Juninho Pernambucano was considered by many including Jose Mourinho as one of the favourites for the UEFA Champions League title during the mid-2000s.
Lyon did produce some memorable displays in the Champions League during that period and famously eliminated Real Madrid in the Round-of-16 in 2010. But their best result at the competition was a semi-final finish achieved in the same year.
Lyon’s only title in Europe is the 1997 Intertoto Cup which had multiple winners every year and existed solely as a path for European clubs to qualify for the UEFA Cup if their league position was inadequate.
5) Monaco
Another heavyweights of French football, Monaco have won seven Ligue 1 titles and five Coupe de France honours – however, their trophy cabinet is still empty as far as European honours are concerned.
Their best performance in Europe was in the 2003-04 UEFA Champions League where an incredible run saw them eliminate both Real Madrid and Chelsea en route to the final where they were outclassed by Jose Mourinho's Porto. A decade earlier, Monaco had reached their first ever European final - a Cup Winners Cup title match against Werder Bremen that ended in a 2-0 reverse.
Backed by the money of Russian billionaire Dimitry Rybolovlev, Monaco returned to the top tier of French football after a disastrous 2011 season that ended in relegation and eyed European glory once again. They eliminated Arsenal during a run to the quarter-finals of the Champions league in 2014-15 but were eliminated during the qualifying stages of this year’s edition and even found themselves going out of the Europa League in the group stages behind Tottenham and Anderlecht.
6) Manchester City
Current heavyweights of English football, Manchester City’s European pedigree is restricted to winning the UEFA Cup Winners Cup of 1970. City beat Polish side Gornik Zabrze in the final in Vienna with goals from Neil Young and future club chairman Francis Lee.
But decline would soon follow and the English side would not compete in Europe for 24 years starting from the mid-seventies. Even when oil money transformed City into one of the best clubs in England, their UEFA Champions League expeditions were always brief, getting eliminated in the group stages or the first knock-out round.
However, the Citizens are in the semi-finals if this year’s edition, with a tie against European aristocrats Real Madrid waiting. Can Aguero and co. translate City’s national domination into Europe?
7) Paris Saint-Germain
Paris St Germain is actually the only French club other than Marseille to win a European title, but PSG’s European exploits are nothing worthwhile so as to hold the French league in good stead.
The cash-rich Parisians have never won the UEFA Champions League or the Europa League, but they did win the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in the 1995-96 season. The campaign saw PSG thrash Celtic 3-0 at the usually formidable Celtic Park stadium in the knock-out stages and went on to lift the trophy with a victory over Rapid Vienna.
The mid-nineties saw PSG produce their best ever performances on a European stage as the team comprising of George Weah and Youri Djorkaeff topped a Champions League group comprising of Bayern Munich and went on to eliminate the mighty Barcelona in the quarter-finals before narrowly losing to Milan in the semi-finals.
PSG is close to matching that golden age with the current squad of expensive stars like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Edinson Cavani – Les Parisiens have reached four straight Champions League quarter-finals as of late and eliminated English powerhouses Chelsea in successive years.
A European title has to be close for the four-time defending Ligue 1 Champions, who were also the co-winners of the UEFA Intertoto cup in 2001
