“Dinamo has been able to live off UEFA prize money and big transfers,” Holiga said. The income has been so great that — until last year — all of its rivals simply were swept into its wake.

The Feeder Formula

When Christoph Spycher was appointed sporting director at the Swiss club Young Boys in 2016, he realized there was only one way to try to close the gap on Basel. His club could not count on Champions League revenue, he decided, but it could try to mimic the competition’s benefits.

“In the previous years, the club had tried a lot of different approaches,” he said. “It had made big investments in experienced players, but it had never reached its goal.”

The solution, in his eyes, was simple. Young Boys would focus on signing, developing and selling young players, matching Basel as a profit-generating hothouse of talent. If Young Boys could make money in the transfer market, the proceeds could be reinvested in the team, and Basel’s financial advantage might be minimized.

It was, at first, a little controversial. All but a handful of senior players were sold. The club had to be “courageous,” Spycher said, as well as committed to Adi Hutter, its Austrian coach, who preaches a high-intensity, adventurous style. Spycher revamped the scouting operation, instructing it to look specifically for players who could meet Hutter’s demands, and hired a raft of youth coaches to develop homegrown talent.

The effects have been impressive. When Switzerland’s league season reached its halfway point — and its winter break — Young Boys sat top of the table, raising hopes that Basel might be dethroned as champion for the first time since 2009. “Last year, there was not much tension in the league,” Spycher said. “Basel was 15 or 16 points ahead of us, and we were 12 or 13 points ahead of third.” This year, he said, things are “more interesting.”

There is a whiff of similar change in Croatia, Greece and Belarus. Holiga said that he believes Rijeka’s success in Croatia last year was a one-off affair, but pointed to the revival at youth level of Hajduk Split, the country’s other power, as a sign of promise. A.E.K. is back in Greece’s top flight after several years of hardship and financial crisis, some of it perhaps brought on by rash decisions prompted by the need to try to close the gap on a runaway rival, but less than a week after its cup tie it beat Olympiacos to leapfrog its rival in the table. Hodasevich said the stunning climax to last season’s title — when only a 95th-minute equalizer on the final day extended BATE’s title streak — was “encouraging” for all of Belarus.