SHERIFF ARE A MATCH FOR THE BIG GUNS
THEY caused the biggest upset in Champions League history...
Real Madrid 1 Sheriff Tiraspol 2.
But just who is the team making their debut in the competition this season who sit top of Group D – ahead of 13-times winners Real – with maximum points after also beating Shakhtar Donetsk?
Sheriff Tiraspol hail from a state not even recognised by the international community.
Trans-Dniester is a tiny area bordering Ukraine, which declared itself independent from Moldova following a short and bitter war in 1992, which claimed around one thousand lives.
The team are backed by the vast resources of the Sheriff company, whose annual turnover is almost double that of the Moldovan state budget.
The company owns a chain of petrol stations, supermarkets, a TV channel, a publishing house, a construction company, a mobile phone network and other lucrative business interests.
While the rest of the top division in Moldova play on pitches rented from municipal authorities, Sheriff’s home is a £154million purpose-built arena on the outskirts of Tiraspol.
So while Tuesday’s historic victory in the Bernabeu has stunned the football world, this is no rags-toriches tale, but one of significant investment over a period of years.
Having been restricted to fielding largely Moldovan players because of home-grown quotas, a relaxing of that regulation has allowed Sheriff to sign players from Brazil, Colombia, Uzbekistan, Ghana, Luxembourg, Trinidad and Tobago and Peru.
“I dreamed of winning in the Bernabeu,” said Sheriff defender Gustavo Dulanto, who hails from Peru. “There’s still a long way to go and we can’t relax because there’s no logic in football, as this result showed. We came here with the knife between our teeth but we can only look forward to the next game.”
Captain Frank Castaneda said they fancied their chances before kick-off. “We knew we could win here and before the game we had it in our heads that we could,” said Castaneda, a forward who hails from Colombia.
The triumph eclipsed Celtic’s 2-1 win over
mighty Barcelona in 2012.