Basel have pretty much won the Swiss Super League already

The beautiful game is littered with perennial champions, existing as big fish in increasingly small football ponds.

Premier League fans would have you believe that teams like Celtic and Rangers or Real Madrid and Barcelona are the main offenders in this respect but, in truth, they are only the tip of the iceberg.

For true footballing bully boys, you have to look further afield to teams like Olympiacos, winners of some 43 Greek Super League titles, including nine in the last decade alone.

In Croatia, Dinamo Zagreb has claimed 18 league titles since 1992 and are currently on a streak of 11 consecutive league crowns while Cypriot giants Apoel Nicosia has 25 titles to their name having won four on the bounce.

And then there is Basel of Switzerland.

Swiss Super League title winners in eight of the last nine domestic seasons, Basel have claimed the top prize for seven seasons running and will surely add another come the end of the 2016-17 campaign with the league title all but academic given their current situation.

With nine games of the season gone already, Basel have played and beaten every other team in the Swiss top-flight at least once.

Top of the table with 27 points to their name already, Urs Fischer’s side are currently 13 points clear of second place Young Boys – great name – and that’s only the half of it.

Fischer’s team have averaged exactly three goals a game in the process, conceding just seven along the way to give Basel a goal different of +22 – the next highest tally in the division is a paltry +4.

Striker Seydou Doumbia, who spent half a season on loan at Newcastle without making an impact whatsoever, has already scored five goals while Czech goalkeeper Tomas Vaclik has three clean sheets to his name.

Still two titles away from equalling the all-time record of Grasshopper Club Zurich, who have 19 leagues to their name, Basel have made the perfect start to the season and can set a new record for consecutive league wins with one more win.

They still have some way to beat another of their records though – Basel once went 28 games without a loss from August 2013 to May 2014.

Don’t write them off just yet though. Write everyone else off though, of course.