A Comprehensive Weekly Look at the Top Teams In European Football

Welcome back to the Curcio/Nielsen ratings! After a weeklong hiatus that saw arguably the most controversial international footballing moment of our lifetimes (Thierry Henry is no longer allowed in the Republic of Ireland), we’re ready for the next edition of the rankings, and we hope you are too! This weekend saw a number of pretty ridiculous games, the most insane of which took place in London this morning. Tottenham Hotspur, the club that Tom refuses to believe in, beat a reasonable Wigan Athletic side 9-1. The amount of typo involved in that score is zero. The score was nine to one. The only thing more unbelievable than the final score was the fact that at halftime, Tottenham Hotspur had a whopping 1-0 lead. Then Jermain Defoe realized that he’s a beast, scored a hat trick in 7 minutes (goals in the 51st, 54th, and 58th), then added two more to increase his day’s goal total to an impossible 5 freaking goals! Just for that he has earned a spot in the Blaine Curcio hall of fame, because that is just the most ridiculous individual performance I’ve ever seen in a football match up to this point. And for those of you who don’t care for football and don’t quite understand how truly insane 5 goals is, think about the complete opposite of Jay Cutler’s 5 INT performance last week. Or just a 4 HR game by a baseball player. Anyway, now that my mancrush of Jermain Defoe had been proclaimed from the rooftops, let’s talk about some other matches. Manchester United and Chelsea both cruised to easy wins against premier league minnows, winning 3-0 and 4-0, respectively. FK Rubin Kazan clinched the Russian Premier League title with their home draw to Zenit St. Petersburg. Arsenal will certainly be dropping in both rankings with their 1-0 loss to Sunderland, while Sevilla continues to rise with their respectable away victory vs. Tenerife. Real Madrid somewhat continues their woes with a thoroughly unimpressive home win against Racing Santander. That’s about all I’m going to write because this is getting rather long, but here’s the rankings!

Rank Team (Nationality) Points
1. Chelsea (Eng)50
2. Manchester United (Eng)47
T3. Barcelona (Esp) 45
T3. Inter Milan (Ita) 45
Blaine: Yes, they were already written about a few weeks ago in this very blog, but Inter Milan has officially morphed from a football club into an unstoppable force (at least in Serie A matches). Inter hasn’t lost a Serie A match since September. Their matches since their last defeat go like this: Inter 2-1 Udinese, Genoa 0-5 Inter, Inter 2-1 Catania, Inter 5-3 Palermo, Livorno 0-2 Inter, Inter 1-1 AS Roma, Bologna 1-3 Inter. That’s 6 wins and 1 draw, and with no signs of slowing down, Inter is running away with the Scudetto. Juve has been keeping pace for now, but Inter has a more confident and more talented squad with an insane man at the helm (Jose Mourinho). Basically, if Inter can get their act together in the Champions’ League as much as they have in Serie A, it will be devastating for anyone who has to play them. Don’t be surprised if they’ve clinched Serie A by St. Patrick’s Day.
5. Sevilla (Esp) 41
Blaine: Being led by an intense desire to piss off Real Madrid and Barcelona, Sevilla continue to march on in La Liga, holding their 3rd place spot convincingly. By continuing to waltz right on through their relatively weak Champions’ League group, Sevilla has allowed themselves to play quite the formidable squad in most of their La Liga matches. Having not lost a match since October 17th, they’re looking quite good compared to the thoroughly mediocre (at least lately) giants of Barcelona and Real Madrid. If Sevilla can keep being as consistent as Greg Maddux, they may have a chance at sneaking into first place in La Liga.
6. Real Madrid (Esp) 40
T7. Arsenal (Eng) 37
T7. Juventus (Ita) 37
9. AC Milan (Ita) 36
10. Bayer Leverkusen (Ger) 30
11. Tottenham Hotspur (Eng) 27
12. Werder Bremen (Ger) 22
T13. Lyon (Fra) 21
T13. FK Rubin Kazan (Rus) 21
T15. Manchester City (Eng) 20
T15. FC Twente (Ned) 20
Blaine: I couldn’t very well not write about FC Twente, given that they’re rising quickly and, appropriately enough, they have 20 points. They’re currently ripping the Dutch Eredivisie to shreds, and are sitting in 2nd in a thoroughly underwhelming Europa League group. I would love to be able to say that Twente haven’t lost in some ridiculous amount of time this season, but I can’t say that. That is, because they haven’t lost. Yes you read that correctly, this season in Dutch Eredivisie play, FC Twente have not lost. We’re in late November. In 14 matches, they have 12 wins and 2 draws. And 0 losses. The only thing more insane than that is the fact that they only hold a 2 game lead over 2nd place PSV (which is a statement to how top-heavy the Eredivisie is), but still a very impressive run so far by Twente.
17. Bordeaux (Fra) 19
T18. Schalke (Ger) 14
T18. Ajax Amsterdam (Ned) 14
20. CSKA Moscow (Rus) 13
21. Valencia (Esp) 12
22. Sampdoria (Ita) 8
23. PSV Eindhoven (Ned) 7
24. Fiorentina (Ita) 6
25. Hamburger SV (Ger) 5

Others receiving votes:
AJ Auxerre (Fra) 4, Fenerbahce (Tur) 4, Braga (Por) 3, Dynamo Kiev (Ukr) 1, Napoli (Ita) 1

Here is how the voters voted:

Rank	Tom	Blaine
1	Chelsea	Chelsea
2	Inter Milan	Manchester United
3	Manchester United	Barcelona
4	Barcelona	Sevilla
5	Real Madrid	Inter Milan
6	Arsenal	Juventus
7	Sevilla	Real Madrid
8	AC Milan	AC Milan
9	Juventus	Arsenal
10	Bayer Leverkusen	Tottenham Hotspur
11	Werder Bremen	FK Rubin Kazan
12	Schalke 04	Bayer Leverkusen
13	Lyon	CSKA Moscow
14	Valencia	Twente Enschede
15	Tottenham Hotspur	Manchester City
16	Bordeaux	Ajax Amsterdam
17	Manchester City	Bordeaux
18	Twente Enschede	Lyon
19	PSV Eindhoven	Werder Bremen
20	FK Rubin Kazan	Fiorentina
21	Hamburg SV	Sampdoria
22	Ajax Amsterdam	Fenerbahce
23	Sampdoria	Braga
24	AJ Auxerre	AJ Auxerre
25	Dynamo Kiev	Napoli

Next five in for Tom, in order of Blaine's preference:
Fiorentina, Fenerbahce, Marseille, Benfica, Braga

Next five in for Blaine, in order of Legendary Status
Jermain Defoe, Marseille (due to their ability to thoroughly dominate Tom in FIFA every single day of his life), Parma (gotta love the Italians), Valencia, Shahktar Donetsk

That's it for this week's rankings, and remember, as we get into this holiday season, don't eat the yellow snow!