They say that winning is a habit for successful clubs, and certain teams have dominated their home country so completely that it is hard to see that run ever coming to an end.

There have been plenty of extended dynasties across Europe’s bigger leagues — such as Bayern Munich‘s run of 11 straight Bundesliga championships between 2013 and 2023, nine-in-a-row title runs for Celtic and Rangers in the Scottish Premiership, and Juventus‘ hold over Serie A between 2012 and 2020 — but there are some less famous teams who have enjoyed an even greater stranglehold over their domestic rivals.

Historically, Lincoln Red Imps in Gibraltar won 14 consecutive league titles between 2003 and 2016, a feat matched by the now defunct Skonto Riga in Latvia. Tafea FC from the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu claim to have bettered that with 15 wins on the bounce, but there are doubts over whether that should count as their triumphs were against regional selections rather than within a proper national league structure.

But which teams, who might not be household names across the world, are the all-conquering powerhouses in their own backyards right now?

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FK Arkadag can lay claim to the staggering record of never having dropped a single league point in their history. Since they were founded in April 2023, they have won all 82 league matches and, unsurprisingly, have claimed three consecutive championships in the Yokary Liga.

One factor in this incredible success could be that the club’s founder is Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow — the former president of Turkmenistan. Arkadag means “Protector,” the title Berdimuhamedow adopted while in power from 2007 until 2022, when his son Serdar took over as the former Soviet state’s leader. The $3.3 billion “smart city” of Arkadag was built to Berdimuhamedow Sr.’s specifications in 2022.

This clout allowed FK Arkadag to assemble a dream team of Turkmen talent and, in a nation where no foreigners play, that is a significant advantage. In addition to their league dominance, they have also won all 14 domestic cup ties that they have contested — adding three Turkmenistan Cups, two Super Cups and one Football Federation Cup to their honor roll.

Arkadag did finally lose a match in the 2024-25 AFC Challenge League against Kuwaiti side Al Arabi, ending a 61-game winning streak, but they still went on to lift the trophy in their first season in continental competition.

In this season’s AFC Champions League Two, Arkadag won one, drew four and lost one of their group stage matches. That earned them a round-of-16 meeting over two legs with star-studded Saudi Pro League side Al Nassr.

Even without their star forward Cristiano Ronaldo, who at the time was boycotting his team’s matches because of his unhappiness with the PIF (Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment fund) and the fund’s help for his club in the transfer window, Al Nassr still won 1-0 when they played the first leg in Turkmenistan on Feb. 11.

Ronaldo has now back in action, scoring just 18 minutes into his return in Saturday’s 2-0 win at Al Fateh, and is set to play the second leg against Arkadag in Riyadh on Feb. 18.

For all that he has achieved in his glittering career — five Champions Leagues, five Ballon d’Ors, nearly 1,000 goals — surely even Ronaldo has never come across a club that has never lost a domestic game in its entire existence?

The club known as JDT has won 11 consecutive league titles in Malaysia, establishing a level of dominance never previously seen in the Southeast Asian country. Before JDT’s current run, no Malaysian side had ever won the championship more than three times in a row since its inception in 1982.

Owned by royalty — the Crown Prince of Johor — JDT have superior finances and facilities, allowing the club to attract the best talent in the region and a healthy contingent of foreigners.

Despite their domestic supremacy, JDT remain the second-most-supported club in Malaysia after Premier League giants Manchester United — that might be the one title they can’t win.

The team from Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, have notched up 12 straight titles. The club, whose name means “Independence,” has some powerful backers, as it was co-founded by the heir apparent to the president of Tajikistan. Are you noticing a theme here?

Rustam Emomali — the son of Emomali, Tajik leader since 1994 — has also played as a striker and served as team captain for Istiklol. The Lions won the league in 2010 and 2011 with Emomali playing up front. At the age of 24, he then stepped back to become head of the Tajikistan Football Federation.

Ludogorets share the European record of consecutive titles with Lincoln Red Imps (Gibraltar) and Skonto Riga (Latvia), having racked up their 14th straight triumph last season.

Hailing from Bulgaria’s 27th largest settlement, Razgrad, Ludogorets owe their success to the investment of Kiril Domuschiev, a pharmaceuticals entrepreneur who became Bulgaria’s first billionaire. Formerly a small club, the Eagles didn’t look back once they reached the top flight in 2011, immediately winning a league and cup double and beginning an era of dominance.

This season might finally see an end to Ludogorets’ superiority as they sit seven points behind leaders Levski Sofia. But, with the top four then competing in a playoff for the title, don’t write them off just yet.

It is a quirky piece of trivia, and one that causes much consternation, that the most successful team in the Welsh football league system is based in England. Welsh side Llansantffraid FC adopted the much-derided corporate name Total Network Solutions before merging with Oswestry Town in 2003 and deciding to base just over the English border in Oswestry under the name The New Saints (TNS).

Enjoying unprecedented investment for the Welsh league and creating the only full-time squad, TNS have won a record 17 Cymru Premier titles. They even claimed to have set a Guinness World Record for consecutive wins in February 2024, briefly engaging in an unlikely feud with Saudi side Al Hilal, before it emerged that one of their victories was via a penalty shootout that rendered their claim ineligible.

Sheriff Tiraspol aren’t actually the reigning champions of Moldova and in some people’s eyes, they aren’t even part of Moldova. However, their name has become synonymous with Moldovan success over the last 20 years.

Hailing from Transnistria, a de facto independent state at the center of a frozen conflict, Sheriff have won 21 league titles in Moldova since 2000-01. They were dethroned last season despite going through the whole campaign unbeaten due to the odd system employed by the Moldovan Liga which involves a final five-team group after the main league stage.

Nevertheless, the Wasps — whose president, Viktor Gushan, is a former KGB officer — remain a force to be reckoned with and became the first Moldovan side to reach the group stage of the UEFA Champions League in 2021-22, when they stunned Real Madrid with a 2-1 win at the Bernabéu.

Plus, as almost everything in Transnistria is owned by the Sheriff group, they are one of few football clubs to boast their own brand of vodka — essential for a cold midweek game in Tiraspol.

Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo has won a 10th gold medal in cross country skiing at the Milan Cortina Olympics, setting another Winter Games record.

The 29‑year‑old, racing with Einar Hedegart, won the men’s team sprint Wednesday for his fifth gold at the 2026 Games.

Klaebo’s victory made him only the second Olympian ever — along with swimming great Michael Phelps — with 10 gold medals. Phelps won 23 golds over four Olympics from 2004 to 2016, including eight wins at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Klaebo broke the Winter Olympics record in Sunday’s 4×7.5-kilometer relay, and he will look to go 6-for-6 at these Games in Saturday’s 50-kilometer mass start. He would join three swimmers — Phelps (twice), Mark Spitz and Kristin Otto — and gymnast Vitaly Scherbo with at least six golds at one Olympics.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — On Wednesday, Mikaela Shiffrin will enter the start gate of the Olympic slalom as the favorite for gold. On Sunday, she took a giant step toward that result.

Shiffrin was not expected to medal in Sunday’s giant slalom. Despite being the 2018 Olympic gold medalist in the event, and the all-time World Cup wins leader, Shiffrin only recently returned to a GS podium in January. Less than a year ago, she didn’t know if she would ever stand in another giant slalom start gate.

“After the injury last year and then returning to GS racing, I was so far off,” Shiffrin said Sunday. “I felt like there was no hope to be faster.”

That’s why her 11th-place finish in Sunday’s giant slalom felt like a win for the 30-year-old and why, all smiles in the mixed zone after the race, she called it “a beautiful day of racing.” Shiffrin skied smooth, tight lines with confidence and said she was pushing and “turning nervous energy into intensity and taking power from the course.” Her result was within a few tenths of the podium, a positive step in the right direction.

“To be here now, just in touch of the fastest women, that’s huge for me,” Shiffrin said. “I’m so proud.”

Fifteen months ago in November 2024, Shiffrin crashed in a GS race in Killington, Vermont, on a day she was attempting to win her 100th World Cup title at her home race. She slid off course and into the safety nets and, once in the ambulance, medics realized she had been impaled in her abdomen, likely by the slalom gate she crashed into. Her physical recovery from the injury was grueling. Her mental journey back to racing took longer.

Shiffrin has spoken openly about managing her struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder as she fought her way back. In an essay for The Players’ Tribune last May, she wrote that after the crash, her mind and body had become disconnected — the ski racing equivalent of the “twisties.”

“You absolutely need to be able to trust that what you see happening in your mind is fully connected with what you then do with your body,” she wrote. “If that connection is off … the danger level increases exponentially.”

Shiffrin began to find her footing again through therapy and exposure — and by letting go of the outcome. When she stopped caring about times, podiums or medals, fear began to loosen its grip. In January, she finished third in a World Cup giant slalom, her first podium since the crash.

And then she came to the Olympics, where expectations and pressure are unavoidable and unlike on the World Cup circuit, another opportunity comes only once every four years. The first week of these Games alone have seen several top athletes succumb to the pressure, including Shiffrin, who finished 15th of 18 racers in the slalom leg of last week’s team combined, squandering the lead her teammate, Breezy Johnson, had built after the downhill.

That’s why on Sunday, she said she was taking only positives from her performance in the GS, an event she hasn’t raced consistently since her injury. “I was like, I don’t know, maybe I’ll never race GS again,” Shiffrin said. “And here we are, in a totally different position, and it shows that you can fight.”

Wednesday’s slalom will be different.

The slalom is Shiffrin’s best event. Seventy-one of her record 108 World Cup wins have come in the slalom — more than any skier in any discipline ever — and this season alone, she has won seven of eight starts and already clinched her ninth slalom Crystal Globe.

But Shiffrin has a rocky relationship with the Olympics. She’s a two-time Olympic gold medalist, yet she hasn’t earned a medal in her past eight Olympic starts. For Shiffrin, as for most ski racers, success has been punctuated with crashes, injuries, setbacks and comebacks, as well as big wins in big moments when the world is watching.

At 18, she became the youngest Olympic slalom champion in history in Sochi. She hasn’t won Olympic slalom gold since.

In Pyeongchang, she left with giant slalom gold — and disappointment.

In Beijing, she unraveled. Expected to medal in at least three of the six events she raced, she medaled in none.

“I don’t want Beijing to be the reason that I’m scared of the Olympics,” Shiffrin told Olympics.com last fall. Shortly before arriving in Cortina, she recorded an episode of her podcast in which she talked about coming to terms with an awareness that “the Olympics are not designed for the comfort or to prioritize performance of the athletes and teams competing.”

The season after her disappointing Beijing Games, Shiffrin broke the World Cup wins record. She suffered injuries over the next two seasons, has been unstoppable in the slalom this year and has had a confounding start to her fourth Olympics.

Even for the greatest of all time, success is not linear.

On Wednesday, Shiffrin has two runs to trust her mind and her body — and to trust herself to be the best in the world. She said she and her team had a “really wonderful” session of slalom training and that she’s heading into her final race with more knowledge of what it takes to ski fast on this course, and with a new mentality.

“There were a lot of turns where I was quite quick on the team combined day, and a handful where there was just a misalignment,” Shiffrin said. “And then my mentality was not matching the day. So I’m going into [Wednesday] with my eyes open that we can see a very similar situation [to last week]. And I will try to handle it differently.”

On Wednesday, handling it differently might mean more than gold.