UEFA Champions League map - 2008-09 season

The gulf between football in Eastern and Western Europe is rarely more clearly on display than in Bill Turianski's latest contribution, a map of the 2008-09 Champions League. Of the 32 clubs only nine could be considered part of Eastern Europe and three of those (Panathinaikos, Anorthosis and Fenerbahçe) fit ever so loosely into that category. Ranked by their 2007-08 league attendance Fenerbahçe are the top Eastern club (13th at nearly 40,000 per game) while Zenit St Petersburg are the top club from Eastern Europe proper in the 23rd position at roughly 20,000. And that during a season in which they won the league title for the first time in over twenty years.

The map displays each club's emblem at their location, with the emblems sized proportional to their attendance. On the left is a simple table ranking each of the 32 clubs by their 2007-08 average league attendance, which is also included. The usual suspects sit atop the table - Real Madrid, Manchester United and Bayern Munich are the top three. The only club outside the traditional "big five" leagues is Celtic, sixth on the table at over 56,000.

Bringing up the rear are Belarus champions BATE Borisov, who surprised both Anderlecht and Levski Sofia to reach the group stage for the first time. BATE incidently is where Alexander Hleb got his start among a number of other lesser-known Belarussian national team players. Also debuting are Anorthosis Famagusta of Cyprus who improbably overcame mighty Olympiakos of Greece in the third qualifying round.

A few Champions League regulars also inhabit the lower reaches of the attendance list, among them Dynamo Kiev and Shaktar Donetsk of Ukraine, Panathinaikos of Greece and Steaua Bucharest. I'm guessing these clubs occupy the category of clubs that draw big crowds for big games and virtually nobody when they pound tiny provincial sides in the league.

Bill Turianski runs the website Bill's Sports Maps - which features many, many maps, profiles of teams and a whole lot more.