A Comprehensive Weekly Look at the Top Teams In European Football

This is the first edition of a Top 25 Poll of European Football Clubs as voted upon by myself (Tom) and Blaine! We hope you enjoy and we hope this further increases your interest in the great spectacle that is European Football.

Rank Team (Nationality) Points
T1. Barcelona (Esp) 49
T1. Chelsea (Eng) 49
Tom: You really cannot go wrong with either team as the choice for number one for this poll. I chose Chelsea as they are number one in the best league in Europe, the English Premier League, and they are perfect in their Champions League group, with wins over Atletico Madrid, FC Porto, and APOEL. On the other hand, Barcelona are the defending Champions of Europe, and flexed that muscle with a beautiful 6-1 win over Real Zaragoza this weekend, vaulting them to top of the table in La Liga with a great 7-1-0 record. The mid-week shock loss to FK Rubin Kazan at home prevented me from putting them at the top of my rankings. Before Manchester United’s 2-0 loss at Anfield to a struggling Liverpool side, they too had a strong case for best in Europe. However, it is a long season and these are sure to be volatile rankings.
3. Manchester United (Eng) 46
4. Real Madrid (Esp) 44
T5. Inter Milan (Ita) 40
T5. Sevilla FC (Esp) 40
7. Arsenal (Eng) 38
8. Bordeaux (Fra) 35
Tom: Bordeaux is atop Ligue 1 with a 7-1-2 record from 10 games and is leading a decent Champions League group consisting of Juventus, Bayern Munich, and Maccabi Haifa. Bordeaux secured a solid away draw at Juventus and beat Bayern Munich 2-1 at home. No matter what my colleague says about the Bundesliga, any time you take down a team of Luca Toni, Franck Ribery, Hamit Altintop, and Miroslav Klose, it is a win to be proud of. Still, they have lost two of their last three domestic matches and have a top of the table clash with AS Monaco this coming Saturday, followed by a mid-week match with in Germany to face Bayern and they will be welcomed back by Lille, who is weak in domestic form this year but still a formidable opponent for the French league. The coming two weeks will tell whether or not the relatively young squad is for real this season.
9. Juventus (Ita) 34
10. Bayer Leverkusen (Ger) 27
11. Tottenham Hotspur (Eng) 23
Blaine: Tottenham “Ham”, “Spurs”, Hotspur: Yes, Spurs do have 3 losses this year in the Barclay’s Premier League. However, one must consider that 2 of these three losses are to Manchester United and Chelsea, the 3rd and 2nd ranked teams on this list, respectively. Spurs’ loss this weekend to Stoke City, while disgraceful, was not enough to knock them off this list, or even out of the top 10. Spurs are a young, talented club led by an experienced manager and a captain who has been playing at the highest level of football since he was 17. Robbie Keane (the aforementioned captain) was a highly regarded footballer for years before a hugely unsuccessful transfer to Liverpool, but since returning to Spurs he has 5 goals in 10 matches, along with 2 assists. I expect Spurs to take this loss to Stoke and use it as motivation, and go on quite the run this season, perhaps finishing around 4-5 in the Premiership.
T12. Fiorentina (Ita) 20
T12. Manchester City (Eng) 20
T14. AC Milan (Ita) 18
Blaine: After having started off the season miserably, AC Milan has seemingly found their form lately. Ronaldinho is allegedly showing up at the San Siro to practice hours before matches and, on non-match days, at an incredibly early hour. Alexandre Pato, the young Brazilian starlet, has been on a brilliant run as of late, culminating in a brace in Milan’s 3-2 win over Real Madrid. That very match is one of the main reasons that Milan is ranked so high on this list, as it was Madrid’s first loss of the season at the Bernabeu all season.
T14. Hamburg SV (Ger) 18
T16. Olympiakos (Gre) 14
T16. Sampdoria (Ita) 14
T18. CSKA Moscow (Rus) 13
T18. Lyon (Fra) 13
20. Schalke 04 (Ger) 12
T21. Benfica (Por) 11
T21. FC Porto (Por) 11
23. Celtic (Sco) 9
24. Rangers (Sco) 8
T25. Dynamo Kiev (Ukr) 7
T25. FK Rubin Kazan (Rus) 7
T25. Werder Bremen (Ger) 7

Also Receiving Votes: Fenerbahce (Tur) 6, Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukr) 4, Valencia (Esp) 4, Sunderland (Eng) 3, Braga (Por) 2, PSV Eindhoven (Ned) 1, Sporting CP (Por) 1

Here is how the voters voted:

Rank	Tom	Blaine
1	Chelsea	Barcelona
2	Barcelona	Chelsea
3	Manchester United	Manchester United
4	Real Madrid	Real Madrid
5	Inter Milan	Arsenal
6	Sevilla	Sevilla
7	Bordeaux	Inter Milan
8	Hamburg SV	Juventus
9	Arsenal	Tottenham Hotspur
10	Juventus	Bordeaux
11	Bayer Leverkusen	AC Milan
12	Sampdoria	Fiorentina
13	Lyon	CSKA Moscow
14	Schalke 04	Bayer Leverkusen
15	Benfica	FC Porto
16	Manchester City	Manchester City
17	Olympiakos	Celtic
18	Fiorentina	Rangers
19	Werder Bremen	FK Rubin Kazan
20	Tottenham Hotspur	Fenerbahce
21	Dynamo Kiev	Olympiakos
22	Valencia	Shakhtar Donetsk
23	Braga	Sunderland
24	AC Milan	Dynamo Kiev
25	PSV Eindhoven	Sporting CP

Next 5 in for Tom, in order from West to East: Porto, Liverpool, AS Monaco, Fenerbahce, FK Rubin Kazan

Next 5 in for Blaine, in order from East to West: Galatasaray, Panathinaikos, Sampdoria, Anderlecht, Lille

Comments from Blaine: Overall a fairly typical top 25. While going through league tables and European competition results there weren’t too many shockers as to who was apparently quite good and who wasn’t, so this list closely resembles the one that I had in mind before doing some research. As expected, my list is a bit heavy on English football, but frankly for good reason, as the Premiership is pretty much hands down the best league in the world. There are a few interesting differences in mine and Tom’s lists, most noticeably my lack of respect for the Bundesliga, and Tom’s lack of respect for the Scottish Premier League. I’ve never really bought into the fact that the Bundesliga is one of the “major leagues” of Europe. Frankly I think that most of Germany’s football reputation is a result of the glory of a past generation including players such as Oliver Khan and the formerly great Michael Ballack. It is for this reason that only one Bundesliga club appears on this list, and, interestingly enough, that club is not Bayern Munich. Munich is by far the most recognizable German football club, and they have a lot of very good players, but their current 5th place position in the Bundesliga, combined with their relatively poor showing in the Champions League (3rd in their 4 team group), has doomed them to stay the hell off this list. Another interestingly placed club on this list is the Italian club Juventus. Juve is currently 3rd in Serie A and 2nd in their Champions League group, which in theory should not put them as high as they are on this list. However, given their talented roster, and the fact that they have the best keeper in the world, Gianluigi Buffon, I think it’s pretty reasonable to say that they’re at the very least the 8th best club team in Europe. Finally, there’s the inclusion of Shaktar Donetsk, a Ukrainian club that is currently sitting in 2nd place in the Ukrainian premier league. However, when one combines Donetsk’s winning of last year’s UEFA Cup, as well as the fact that they’re currently a perfect 3-0-0 in their Europa league group (with a goal differential of a whopping +10) merits their inclusion in this list. Let the controversy among all 7 readers begin!