Marseille

Note: Stripped of 1993 Ligue and Champions League due to match fixing

The most successful team in French history, Olympique de Marseille managed to win a trophy in almost every decade of the last century. The club itself saw the light of day in 1899 and, by 1924, OM were established as a power on the national stage as they became the first team outside Paris to win the Coupe de France.

Further cup success soon followed and when a professional League was finally launched in 1932, OM became a founding member. By this point, Marseille's legendary fans were already making a name for themselves - having funded building work on the team's old stadium - and they had a championship title to celebrate in 1937. More trophies followed in the 1940s, but relegation was around the corner and dwindling crowds were the order of the day until Marcel Leclerc stepped in to save the club in 1967.

They rivalled Saint-Etienne for ascendancy in the 1970s, but instability returned in the early 1980s, prompting Bernard Tapie to step in and inaugurate a revolution. He brought in some of the best players on the planet (Rudi Völler, Alen Boksic, Marcel Desailly etc) and oversaw five consecutive Ligue 1 titles, as well as 1993's Champions' League final win over AC Milan.

However, a match-fixing scandal saw them stripped of the trophy and their last League success, and since then Marseille have never properly recovered. The post-Tapie years have been marked by chronic mismanagement, poisonous internal politics and high-profile flops, but the team remain the most popular in the country.