Defending champions who collapsed the following season are rarer than you think, but when it happens the fall is brutal. Leicester City hold the record in the Premier League, dropping from 81 points and the title to 44 points and 12th place in a single year. These 5 title defenses went from parade to panic in under nine months.
Why this list matters
Winning a league is a story about peaking. Defending one is a story about depth, and most of these teams had none.
The pattern repeats across every competition. A champion loses the one player or the one coach who held everything together, adds a European schedule nobody on the roster has handled before, and discovers that the margins that made them champions have quietly disappeared.
5. VfL Wolfsburg, 2009/10
Wolfsburg went from the first German title in club history to no European soccer at all in twelve months.
Felix Magath announced he was joining Schalke before the 2008/09 title was even sealed, and Armin Veh inherited a squad that still had Grafite and Edin Dzeko, who had combined for 54 goals in the championship season. The goals kept coming. The structure did not. Wolfsburg finished 8th on 50 points, 19 fewer than the year before, and Veh was fired in January.
Their Champions League debut ended in the group stage behind Manchester United and CSKA Moscow.
- Points lost from the title season: 19
4. Toronto FC, 2018
No MLS Cup winner has ever fallen further in one offseason.
Toronto’s 2017 team set an MLS record with 69 points and won the only domestic treble in league history: MLS Cup, Supporters’ Shield, Canadian Championship. Sebastian Giovinco, Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore were all still there in 2018. Toronto finished with 36 points, ninth in the Eastern Conference, and became only the fourth reigning MLS champion to miss the playoffs.
A long CONCACAF Champions League run that ended with a penalty shootout loss to Chivas drained the roster, and injuries did the rest. The defense that conceded 37 goals in 2017 gave up 60 the following year.
- Toronto FC points total in 2018: 36
3. Manchester United, 2013/14
Sir Alex Ferguson left on 89 points and a trophy. One season later, United were seventh.
David Moyes was handed a six year contract and a squad that had just won the league by eleven points. He was fired on April 22, 2014, with four games still to play, once qualifying for the Champions League became mathematically impossible. United finished on 64 points, their lowest total of the Premier League era at that point, and missed European soccer for the first time in 25 years.
The collapse was not a one season blip either. It started a rebuilding project at Old Trafford that is still running.
- Points drop under David Moyes: 25
2. Chelsea, 2015/16
Chelsea were champions in May and one point above the relegation zone in December.
Jose Mourinho won four of his first sixteen league games as defending champion and was sacked on December 17, 2015, seven months after lifting the trophy. Chelsea were 16th at the time, with the same core that had won the title on 87 points. Guus Hiddink came in as interim manager and stopped the bleeding, but the damage was done.
They finished 10th on 50 points, which was then the worst title defense in Premier League history. That record lasted exactly one season.
- Chelsea league position when Mourinho was sacked: 16th
1. Leicester City, 2016/17
The 5000 to 1 champions became the worst defending champions the Premier League has ever had.
Leicester finished 12th on 44 points, a drop of 37 from their title season, matching Chelsea’s fall as the steepest ever by an English champion. Claudio Ranieri was fired on February 23, 2017, nine months after winning the league, with his team one point clear of the relegation zone after losing five straight league games. He had been named the best men’s coach in the world by FIFA seven weeks earlier.
The root cause was simple. N’Golo Kante left for Chelsea and was never replaced, and the counterattacking system that beat everyone in 2015/16 stopped working once teams sat deep against Leicester instead of chasing them.
The strangest part is what happened in Europe. Leicester topped their Champions League group and reached the quarterfinals, going further in their debut season than any English club that year except one.
- Premier League finish as defending champion: 12th
The verdict
Every collapse on this list traces back to something the champions could not replace. Kante at Leicester, Ferguson at United, Magath at Wolfsburg, the physical ceiling of a small roster at Toronto.
American fans watching the 2026/27 season should keep this in mind before writing off any title race as settled. A defending champion carrying European or CONCACAF fixtures for the first time is carrying a risk the table does not show in August.
FAQ
Which team had the worst title defense in Premier League history? Leicester City, who finished 12th with 44 points in 2016/17 after winning the league in 2015/16. They took the record from Chelsea, who had finished 10th the year before.
Has a defending MLS Cup champion ever missed the playoffs? Yes. Toronto FC in 2018 became the fourth reigning MLS Cup winner to miss the following postseason, one year after setting the league points record.
Why do defending champions collapse so often? The common causes are the loss of a key player or coach, the added load of continental competition, and a squad that was already performing above its level to win the title.
Where can I watch the Premier League and MLS in the US? Premier League games stream on Peacock and air on USA Network and NBC. Every MLS match is on Apple TV through MLS Season Pass, and Champions League coverage runs on Paramount+.