The year 2025 has brought some incredible stories to tell in the world of football. A very few years would have produced such underdog tales or unique achievements in the sport that created history, which will stay long in the memories of the fans. Most of the success has been cup glories with teams either ending years of trophy drought or winning their first piece of silverware to produce remarkable moments. All of these achievements remind us that football still has the beauty of producing unexpected winners other than the regular storied names, with 2025 giving the best examples of it. We list some of those achievements in this piece that reflected the incredible year where football brought a renewed sense of hope and belief.
Drought ends for Newcastle
The first such remarkable tale of the year was scripted in the Carabao Cup, where Newcastle United found success in the form of a trophy after years of waiting. The Magpies were always chasing to get back to their glory days, with some of their lowest points in history coming under Mike Ashley's ownership. However, the regime change in 2021, with the Public Investment Fund or PIF, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, taking control of the club, brought renewed hopes and ambition for the future. Newcastle turned from a relegation-battling club to a top-four battler for the Champions League with the investment. Despite that, a trophy was missing to add the cherry to the cake and it came in the form of an incredible League Cup run in the 2024-25 season. After edging out Nottingham Forest in the first round on penalties, Eddie Howe’s men sensationally beat Chelsea in the fourth round and even eliminated Premier League hopefuls Arsenal in the semifinals, defeating them 4-0 on aggregate.
Their job in the final was more challenging as they were facing a champion Liverpool team, but nothing could have dampened the spirits they produced in the competition. The Magpies were left disappointed last time when they reached the final of the competition in another fantastic run in 2013, which ended in a 2-0 loss to Red’s rivals Manchester United. So, Newcastle could not have let the lightning strike twice and they played out a final to remember. Containing Liverpool in the first half in the final played at Wembley on 16 March 2025, Dan Burn scored on the stroke of half-time and before the opposition could think of a comeback, Alexander Isak scored the eventual winner just five minutes after the restart, with Federico Chiesa’s stoppage-time strike becoming too little too late to change the outcome. The final whistle ensured that Newcastle had finally got their hands on the trophy after 76 years and a first domestic title since the 1954–55 FA Cup. They will hope this will be the first of many to come in the new era for the club.
Go Ahead Eagles creates history
Go Ahead Eagles were a renewed name in Dutch football in the 1920s and 1930s, winning the national league four times in this period and were a dominant force in the region in the period between the First and Second World Wars. The club also had some dominating performances in the 1960s, including reaching the final of the KNVB Cup, the top cup competition in the Netherlands, in 1965, with regular semifinal appearances in the competition. The pride of the IJssel has gone on to produce legends like Marc Overmars, while also being the first senior jobs in management for managers like Erik ten Hag. However, they soon ended up being a club sharing periods between the top division and second division, embroiled in frequent promotion and relegation battles. Even in the modern era, the club only won promotion in the 2013-14 season after two decades in the second tier and then was relegated twice before promoting back to the top flight again in the 2021-22 season.
But in 2025, they did something other than their seesaw ride in the top tier that got the football world talking. Even though the KNVB Cup was dominated by the three acclaimed clubs in the Eredivisie, namely Ajax, PSV, and Feyenoord, there were a few surprises here and there, such as PEC Zwolle in 2014, FC Groningen in the following year, and Vitesse in 2017, in modern times. Go Ahead soon added itself to the list in a remarkable way. Starting with an intense penalty shootout win against Sparta Rotterdam in the second round, the club refused to look back from there, overcoming FC Twente and VV Noordwijk’s challenges with emphatic 3-1 victories to reach the semifinals. There, they faced the league champions PSV Eindhoven at their den, but the intimidating atmosphere did not deceive them as they stunned the home fans with two quick-fire goals close to the half-hour mark to grab a memorable win.
However, the challenge in the cup final on 21st April 2025 was much more severe as they not only had to take on AZ Alkmaar, one of the most successful sides in the country, but also trailed for only the second time in the competition after conceding a penalty in the showpiece in the 54th minute. It was only their second KNVB Cup final in their history and they already overachieved at that point, but they weren’t settling there. Go Ahead pushed on and almost at the last minute of stoppage time, won a penalty that Mats Deijl converted with utter coolness amid the tense situation to force extra time. Eventually, it was time for the tie-breaker, with Go Ahead using their shootout heroics that started it all to win 4-2 and create the most emphatic fairytale. Their success showed that if there is real determination, fortunes can be changed.
Crystal Palace’s wonder story
Undoubtedly, Crystal Palace had one of the finest stories to tell in 2025, transforming a disastrous campaign into joy and ecstasy with only a managerial change. When former Eintracht Frankfurt manager Oliver Glasner took over the club in February 2024, the Eagles were fighting relegation and were almost certain to be relegated to the championship. Yet, the Austrian guided the club to a miraculous turnaround, with the club finishing as high as 10th at the end of the 2023-24 season, losing just three more games after his appointment. However, the real genius of the manager came to the fore in his first full season in charge of the club, where Palace transformed from a relegation battler or a mid-table shiner to giant killers, trophy winners and European football seekers.
Palace is a 120-year-old club, but despite being a household name at times, they did not have any trophies, excluding defunct competitions, to show in their cabinet until a miraculous run in the FA Cup 2025 changed everything. The age-old competition that gives the chance to underdog teams to create a fascinating fairytale added another one to its history books with one of the most unexpected results in the final. Even though the Eagles reached the FA Cup final three times overall and as recently as 2016, their recent accomplishment was stunning to watch as they made it to the showpiece by scoring 12 goals and keeping clean sheets in five matches after entering in the third round, conceding just one goal. However, the challenge in the showpiece was something else as they were locking horns with Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola’s men had a season to forget but were still favourites to win the Cup, having entered the final third time in a row, albeit losing the previous one. The Eagles were facing a club six times their value and possessed one of the deadliest strikers, but no circumstances could have rocked the spirits of the team that was determined to make it a special day on 17 May 2025. Palace’s solidity at the back and the ability to produce lethal counters made their dream come true, as from one of the breakaways, the exciting right-back David Muñoz set up star Eberechi Eze to score the club’s most important goal in their history. Glasner’s men made sure they did not lose the lead in just 16 minutes into the encounter, inspired by their goalkeeper Dean Henderson, who saved an Erling Haaland penalty on the stroke of half-time, among his other important saves to paint Wembley red and blue. It also meant that Crystal Palace qualified for a major European competition for the first time in club history.
Trophyless no more
For seasons, Tottenham Hotspur had grown a tag of bottle-job, doing everything to reach the finishing line but failing to cross it. Yet, they managed to overcome their biggest devil in a season when everyone least expected them to do so. In the 21st century, the Lilywhites only won the 2007–08 League Cup, with not even the remarkable era under Mauricio Pochettino able to repeat the success of winning silverware. The club even reached the Champions League final in 2019 but were left empty-handed. Little did they know that another journey in a different tier of European competition would end their long thrusts for a trophy five years later. However, Spurs were not in good shape in the 2024-25 season, experiencing their worst Premier League season in history by finishing 17th on the table.
Despite that, they kept a healthy form in the Europa League, setting up a final in the competition with fellow side Manchester United, who also had their worst finish in the league but above them. Only winning the title would guarantee them Champions League or any European football the following season and this time Tottenham did not let the nerves get the better of them. In a scrappy final, hosted at San Mames in Bilbao, Spain, a scrappy finish by Brennan Johnson, fitting the occasion, coupled with a match-saving acrobatic clearance by Micky van de Ven and an excellent Guglielmo Vicario in between the sticks, Spurs finally managed to touch glory they so long craved. The success tasted sweeter for club legend Son Heung-Min, who lifted the trophy in his final game for Spurs after a 10-year service. While Ange Postecoglou couldn’t save his job even after helping the club to end its trophy drought due to the abysmal Premier League season, he will be lauded by the fans regardless.
PSG on top of Europe
Since Qatar Sports Investments acquired Paris Saint-Germain on June 11, 2011, their goal has been to transform the capital club into a dominant force both domestically and in Europe. While PSG became the unshakable name in Ligue 1, winning a record 11 titles, they remain disappointingly empty in the Champions League despite going far in the competition most of the time. The Parisians did not feel shy about splashing cash to build a squad full of superstars season after season. Whether it was pairing the two lethal striking combos of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Edinson Cavani, breaking the transfer record of acquiring Brazilian star Neymar, signing generational talent Kylian Mbappe, or becoming the surprise destination of a certain Lionel Messi, none of the blockbuster arrivals gave PSG their desired trophy of all. No matter how hard they tried, the side always suffered embarrassing defeats, leading to heartbreaking elimination.
The club managed to reach the Champions League final for the first time in their history in 2020, yet still failed to get over the line as they suffered a narrow loss to Bayern Munich. It seemed the team lacked the mentality to win a competition like the Champions League, outdoing the legacy clubs with dressing room egos or paychecks becoming more important than touching the glory as a unit. The club also lacked a figure who would manage the squad filled with stars with authority and discipline. Their project seemed to fail when one by one all star names left, including their all-time top goalscorer Mbappe, who made his dream move to Real Madrid in the summer of 2024 on a free. However, when the crisis looked to be deepening, the club changed their philosophy, which proved to be the masterstroke, transforming PSG from a trolled club to a serial winner.
Abandoning their quest to have the best names in the sport in their dressing room, PSG relied on team building without superstars, but a unit filled with talents and future stars. They also gave the guidance role to a former Champions League winner, Luis Enrique and the impact was instant. Initially finding difficulties adjusting to the Spaniard’s tactics and looking at an embarrassing League Phase exit in the competition, the club turned it around at the end of the stage and settled into a devastating force in 2025. Building on a strong centre-back partnership of experienced captain Marquinhos and Willian Pacho, two best full-backs in Nuno Mendes and Achraf Hakimi, the sublime midfield trio of Vitinha, Joao Neves and Fabian Ruiz, with the thrilling attack of Kvicha Kvaratskhelia, Desire Doue and a transformed future Balon d’Or recipient Ousmane Dembélé, they became an unstoppable force.
The magnitude of performance was on a different level. They demolished fellow Ligue 1 side Brest 10-0 on aggregate in the knockout playoffs before stunning Premier League champions Liverpool at Anfield in the last-16 stage, despite going behind in the first leg. The team then overcame the challenges of two more starring English sides, Unai Emery’s Aston Villa and Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, but they reserved their absolute best for the showpiece. PSG obliterated Inter in the final hosted in the Allianz Arena in Munich, which surprisingly has given a maiden winner every time in the competition's history, with a record-breaking scoreline of 5-0 to finally squash their days of misery in the Champions League. That performance symbolised that the club has found the right track and won’t make it a one-off affair to sustain themselves among Europe’s greats.
