In May 2025, Bournemouth took on Manchester City in a Tuesday evening game, their penultimate match of the Premier League season, moved because of City’s participation in the FA Cup final three days previously. Does that have a familiar ring to it?
Fast-forward a year, and City’s FA Cup success – courtesy of a goal by former Cherries favourite Antoine Semenyo – has opened up eighth place for European qualification.
But Bournemouth are in a much stronger position than ever before, with a grip on sixth place which they will hold going into the final day of the season, even if they lose to City.
One point from their last two games – City at home on Tuesday, and Nottingham Forest away on Sunday – would guarantee a club record top-seven finish and Europa League football. Two or more points would nail sixth place, while any more might have Liverpool looking nervously over their shoulders, come Sunday.
Even if they lost both remaining games, Andoni Iraola’s side may already have done enough to book a European tour, as four other results (Chelsea twice, Brentford and Brighton) would also have to go fully against the Cherries to condemn them to ninth place. In fact, only one of the 729 different possible combinations of those six results would keep them in ninth.
It is difficult to put into words just how surprising the prospect of Bournemouth qualifying for European football would have been, even only a few years ago when they first reached the Premier League in 2015.
Less than a generation has passed since fans would have to throw money into buckets just to keep the club alive for another few weeks, and celebrated staying up in League Two after starting the 2008-09 season on minus 17 points.
If you were to tell those supporters that by 2026, Bournemouth would be going into the last game of the season with a mathematical chance of qualifying for the Champions League, surprise would no longer be adequate, and they would be forced to resort to astonishment.
In Greek mythology, the Trojan priestess Cassandra was blessed with the gift of accurate prophecy, but cursed so that no-one would believe her, and one could argue there is a modern echo of that in Cherries owner Bill Foley.
When Foley launched the Vegas Golden Knights as an expansion franchise in ice hockey’s NHL in 2017, he said they would win the Stanley Cup within six years. And on taking over the Cherries in late 2022, he affirmed that they would not be relegated that season (“I guarantee it”), and added in interviews in 2023 that the club would play in Europe within five years. Many scoffed at all those predictions.
Spoiler alert: the Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup in their sixth season, Bournemouth were not relegated in 2022-23 despite losing eight out of nine league games over the winter months, and are now within one point of Europe – a year or two earlier than even Foley anticipated.
Destiny, and prophecy, await.