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In the Swedish fishing village of Hallevik, they’ve been celebrating quite the catch this week.
Nine years after almost going bankrupt as they struggled against relegation to the fourth tier, local heroes Mjallby AIF won the Allsvenskan title for the first time with three games to spare.
Hailing from a place with a population last recorded as 1,485, and with a budget a fraction that of IFK Gothenburg and Malmo, Mjallby’s achievement is almost impossible to quantify. A fairytale? Pick any accolade you want.
But while the stunning success of a team that’s more plankton than a minnow in the big sea might well be the greatest against-the-odds title triumph the European game has ever witnessed, it has company.
Over the border in Norway, Bodo/Glimt have claimed four titles in five years, the ongoing success of a club from a town with 42,000 inhabitants sticking in the throats of the traditional powerhouses like Rosenborg and Molde.
In Belgium this year, after decades in the doldrums, Union Saint-Gilloise out-muscled the likes of Anderlecht and Club Brugge to win their championship.
It's a pivotal moment for Hearts as Craig Halkett, above left, scores late winner against Hibs earlier this month
Derek McInnes has expertly guided the Tynecastle side to the top of the Premiership table
Maybe the footballing Gods are overseeing miracles throughout the continent.. A more likely explanation is that the shrewd use of analytics ensures that nothing is impossible anymore.
This is one reason why anyone dismissing Hearts as serious title challengers does so at their peril.
Tony Bloom’s Jamestown Analytics company was the vehicle which took Union from second-tier obscurity to the Champions League while simultaneously turning around Brighton’s fortunes.
The man who has invested £10million in the Gorgie club doesn’t tend to back losers. Anyone who scoffed at his suggestion that Hearts could win the Premiership within the next 10 years hasn’t been paying attention.
If Derek McInnes’ side defeat Celtic on Sunday to open an eight-point gap, that prediction may well need to be revised.
You could still understand Bloom’s reluctance to predict that Hearts could finish higher than second this year when he spoke in early August.
With two behemoths in the west beating each other into submission each season, Scottish football’s landscape is unique.
This summer marked 40 years since a side from beyond Glasgow were crowned champions. The annual bun fights since Aberdeen’s triumph have gone the way of Celtic on 22 occasions with Rangers raising the flag 18 times.
Hearts are taking full advantage of the investment and analytics expertise of Tony Bloom
Claudio Braga celebrates as Hearts secure victory at Kilmarnock that left them five points clear
Although Aberdeen (nine times) Hearts (four) and Motherwell (three) have finished second in that time, the Old Firm’s stranglehold on the prize has remained.
It seems that whenever one side of the divide has been weak, the other has been strong. There’s been sporadic talk of title challenges from the east and the north, but it’s invariably been muted long before the Easter eggs have been consumed.
Celtic and Rangers have occupied the top two places in each of the past seven seasons. That occurred just once in the 10 years after 1985. The Bosman ruling has done the chasing pack no favours. Money has gone to money.
On the weekend when British Summertime ends, though, it feels like a perfect storm is gathering.
Champions of Scotland in all but one of the past 14 seasons, Celtic are labouring on the field with an air of mutiny engulfing the entire club.
Having lost just twice in 2024, Brendan Rodgers’ team have been defeated 10 times already in this calendar year.
An inability to replace players of the ilk of Nicolas Kuhn, Matt O’Riley, Kyogo Furuhashi and Liel Abada has been compounded by a loss of form by players like Callum McGregor and Daizen Maeda.
A 2-0 loss at Dundee last weekend was the sixth time in 14 games this season in which Celtic had failed to score. Hearts, Hibs, Dundee United and Motherwell have all outgunned the Parkhead outfit to this point.
Celtic are continuing to struggle, as last week's shock 2-0 loss at Dens Park showed
Brendan Rodgers has been feeling the heat this season as his champions play catch-up
Dysfunctional on and off the park, the rate of decline since almost defeating Bayern Munich in February is staggering.
The irony is that Celtic have never had so much money in the bank. The fact that they are being forced to watch the worst side in a generation has led to the fanbase uniting and demanding change at the helm.
Despite recording a much-needed win over Sturm Graz in the Europa League on Thursday, the champions remain fragile.
Not that Rangers supporters have been able to take much pleasure from Celtic’s travails.
Back in May, the purchase of the Ibrox club by an American consortium was supposed to signal the start of a glorious new era. To date, it’s been a bin fire.
The new owners’ first big call was to appoint Russell Martin as manager. He ticked every box apparently and would bring a brand of front-foot football to get fans on the edge of their seats.
Nothing could have been further from the reality. Despite being indulged with a £20m net spend, Martin’s Rangers proved about as entertaining as an afternoon watching paint dry.
They were humiliated 9-1 on aggregate by Club Brugge in the Champions League. By the time he was axed, Rangers had won just one of eight Premiership matches and were 13 points off the pace in the Premiership.
Rangers have a new boss in Danny Rohl, above, but he has a huge job on his hand to fix mess left by predecessor Russell Martin
The Ibrox side looked helpless as they were swept aside by Brann Bergen this week
Supporters’ faith in the new regime was hardly helped by a shambolic recruitment process which saw Steven Gerrard and Kevin Muscat talk but walk away from the negotiating table.
Danny Rohl, who was spoken to in June and again in October, was eventually unveiled as the new head coach.
The 36-year-old German has a reputation of being an excellent coach and did well to keep Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship in his one and only managerial appointment to date.
While no blame can be placed at Rohl’s door for the abysmal performance in Bergen which left Rangers’ bottom of the Europa League group, the scale of the task he faces is impossible to understate.
If the vulnerability of Celtic and Rangers has left the door ajar to the previously unthinkable, everything about Hearts to this point has kicked it open.
They have a shrewd manager in Derek McInnes who knows every blade of grass in the Scottish game.
Bloom’s backing has allowed them to augment Scottish mainstays like Stuart Findlay and Craig Halkett with players of the ilk of Claudio Braga and Alexandros Kyziridis.
There's never been a better time for a shrewd boss like McInnes to lead a non-Old Firm club to the league title
Tony Bloom predicted success for Hearts in ten years but it could be coming sooner
Current goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow has yet to concede in four games since joining. Cammy Devlin is playing the best football of his career.
Lawrence Shankland looks reborn. Record signing Eduardo Ageu is close to returning from injury. Highly rated Kazakh forward Islam Chesnokov will arrive at the turn of the year. Significantly, they also do not have to worry about European football.
To date, McInnes’ side have dropped just two points in eight matches. That’s with scope for improvement.
While the memory of the implosion 20 years ago when Vladimir Romanov sacked George Burley is fresh in the memory down Gorgie Road, there will be no act of self-sabotage this time.
A club who are united have come a long way in a short period of time. There is good reason to believe they can go a lot further. It may be time to batten down the hatches.
