Time to rise? Ranking European football's sleeping giants

From Sampdoria to Saint-Etienne and Real Zaragoza, who are the sleeping giants of European football? Deportivo, Parma, Hamburg. Not just a football hipster's holiday hit-list, but a sample of erstwhile headline acts who have returned to their respective top flights in recent years. You can throw Leeds United, Nottingham Forest, Schalke and Malaga into the mix too. But with such footballing royalty back in the big time, where can you find Europe's current sleeping giants? Which one-mighty sides are still snoozing? We first need to establish some criteria – history, heritage, fanbase, stadium. Clubs with huge potential who currently exist outside the top flight. Calling a big city home helps, but it is not a deal-maker – sorry to fans of Bristol City and second-tier Russian outfit FC Ufa, where the local population tops one million.

Likewise, some clubs with good-sized stadiums have not made the cut. Bari, whose Stadio San Nicola is the third-largest in Italy and was built for Italia '90, stands out, though some of their calcio colleagues outside Serie A also have grounds of more than 30,000 – Hellas Verona, Messina and Palermo among them. There's a plethora of ex-Premier League teams with top-flight worthy arenas and storied pasts, while Germany is stacked full of historic clubs with huge homes who arguably deserve a spot –