European soccer's best record this season is at stake in Scottish top-of-the-table game

The European soccer club with the best record this season — 13 wins from 13 games — isn't one that most would have expected.

This team spent last season in the bottom half of a domestic league it hasn't won since 1985 and has never qualified for the Champions League in its modern format.

It is, however, still the last team to have beaten Real Madrid in a European club competition final, 41 years ago when managed by an all-time great.

Those heady 1980s days when Alex Ferguson ran the show at Aberdeen, on the windswept north-east coast of Scotland, are being revived by an unexpectedly strong start to the season.

On Saturday, Aberdeen’s trophy credentials get their toughest test yet in an away game at league-leading Celtic, the defending champion which also has a 100% record in the Scottish Premiership of seven straight wins.

It is almost one year since Aberdeen last went to Celtic Park and was routed 6-0. That was three permanent or interim managers ago.

Swedish coach Jimmy Thelin then came in this offseason and put a spring in the step of a team that fans call the Dandy Dons.

Starting with a series of July wins against lower-tier opponents in the League Cup, Thelin has known only victories in Scotland since leaving Elfsborg after six years.

Two stoppage-time winning goals were needed to keep the streak going before a 13th straight win was sealed on Oct. 6 by an 88th-minute goal from Ante Palaversa in a second-half rally to beat Hearts 3-2.

“That says a lot about the team now,” said Thelin. “We can see the fire in the eyes of the players.”

Enthusiasm is also back among the fans who have packed Pittodrie Stadium to its 20,000 capacity. Palaversa scored at the beach end of the ground, behind which the statue of Ferguson that the former Manchester United manager himself unveiled in 2022 looks toward the chilly North Sea.

Palaversa, a former Croatia Under-21 midfielder, is a typical example of the type of players that Aberdeen has had to find. Once a $7 million teenage buy for Manchester City, he left without playing a game for Pep Guardiola.

Palaversa had two injury-hit seasons with Man City’s French sister club Troyes before moving to Scotland at the age of 24.

"I feel I need to take this opportunity at Aberdeen to prove myself and get my career back on track," he said when signing in August.

Thelin found instant success despite selling star player Bojan Miovski for a club record 6.8 million pounds ($8.9 million) to Girona. The North Macedonia forward made his debut in the Champions League last month.

Transfer cash has been key to making Aberdeen’s business model work and drove its revenues above 23 million pounds ($30 million) in its most recent accounts.

Celtic earns about five times as much, with a 60,000-seat stadium in Glasgow and regular Champions League action helping fund the signings of Denmark goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel and Belgian midfielder Arne Engels, who cost 11 million euros ($12 million).

Celtic also has won all its games in Scotland this season. A 7-1 loss at Borussia Dortmund is the only game it hasn't won in all competitions.

Celtic has the storied history in Saturday’s top-of-the-table clash. It was European Cup winner in 1967 and lost in the final three years later. It also reached the 2003 UEFA Cup final — beaten by José Mourinho’s Porto — and has 54 Scottish league titles. Glasgow rival Rangers has 55.

Aberdeen is tied for third in the list with just four Scottish titles, three of them in a golden era under Ferguson from 1978-86 before he was lured to Manchester United.

Still, Aberdeen remains the last Scottish team to win a European title. Ferguson’s young team won the 1983 European Cup Winners’ Cup final, beating Real Madrid 2-1 in extra time. Since then, Madrid has won all 11 of its finals, nine in the Champions League and two UEFA Cups.

While Thelin is far from matching Ferguson yet, he has Aberdeen feeling like a winner again.

“We are on a journey together now,” he said. “We are still (keeping our) feet on the ground and stay humble.”