A Comprehensive Weekly Look at the Top Teams in European Football

A very good holiday evening to you all. This past week featured a number of upsets, romps, massacres, rampages, embarrassing draws, and the occasional 8-man side. Undoubtedly the most shocking match of the week was Fulham’s 3-0 destruction of top-5 ranked Manchester United yesterday. United played the worst I’ve seen them play ever I think. Granted, I haven’t been watching United for that long, but I’ve never seen their inefficiencies and weaknesses so perfectly exploited. Fulham’s manager, Roy Hodgson, put the match quite well, when he essentially said that it would be accurate to say that Fulham beat a weakened United side, but that it is still a very impressive win, and that you can’t really improve much over a 3-0 win. Another shocking defeat this week occurred this morning in Catania, Italy. Juventus, who has risen as high as 6 on our rankings, lost 2-1 to a Calcio Catania club who, going into that match, had 1 win, 6 draws, and 9 losses this season in Serie A. The loss is doubly concerning for Juve, as it is their third loss in four matches, one of which led to their exit from the Champions’ League. A match between 2 of our unranked teams was quite intriguing yesterday, as Portsmouth put added pressure on under-fire Liverpool skipper Rafael Benitez with their 2-0 win. The win was Portsmouth’s 4th in 18 matches this season, and Liverpool’s 7th loss in as many fixtures. This defeat was especially brutal for Liverpool, as most of the clubs above them on the table won over the weekend, including solid wins by Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Manchester City, etc. City’s victory, however, was not enough to save the job of Mark Hughes, as he was sacked shortly after their 4-3 thriller over Sunderland Saturday morning. Barcelona did not have any league matches this week, as they were busy winning their unprecedented sixth piece of silverware this season, the FIFA Club World Cup, in the UAE. Barca’s 2-1 win over Estudiantes in the final was far from convincing, but it was enough to win them the prestigious tournament. Arguably the most entertaining match of the Club World Cup was Pohang Steelers of South Korea vs. Estudiantes de la Plata. During this match, Pohang Steelers had three players sent off. This included their keeper, which led to their starting midfielder Denilson stepping in between the posts for the matches’ remaining 15 or so minutes. Pohang lost 2-1, but will forever be remembered as the club to get 3 freaking red cards on worldwide television. Real Madrid continues to roll, with a 6-0 win over Real Zaragoza. Bayern Munich keeps on winning, and will soon be ranked in my rankings I’m sure. Other than that, to anyone reading this, have a good holiday, and keep on watching that football!

Biggest Riser: Aston Villa, who jumped from 19th to a tie for 12th with wins over Stoke City and Sunderland this week for four straight wins and 4th place in the Premiership.

Biggest Faller: Ajax Amsterdam, who lost at home 3-1 to Belgian side Anderlecht midweek before getting a match postponed due to snow and freezing temperatures on the weekend.

Rank Team (Nationality) Points
1. Barcelona (Esp) 50
2. Real Madrid (Esp) 48
3. Chelsea (Eng) 46
T4. Arsenal (Eng) 42
T4. Manchester United (Eng) 42
Tom: Manchester United is going through a real defensive crisis at the moment. First-team defenders Nemanja Vidic, Jonny Evans, John O’Shea, Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, and Wes Brown are all sidelined by injuries. Sir Alex Ferguson was forced to compose a back line of Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher, and Richie De Laet in the miserable 3-0 loss at Fulham on Saturday as United stumbled to their second loss in three Premier League fixtures. Still, United remain only 4 points back of leaders Chelsea by virtue of Chelsea only grabbing 5 points from their 4 matches since the start of December. Arsenal is keeping up the pressure from behind as they sit two points back of United on one less game played. The poor play does not end with the makeshift back line. The entire team struggled immensely today, and star striker Wayne Rooney is in terrible form and has scored only one non-penalty since November 28 in all competitions. Thankfully for United, the next five Premiership games are Hull City twice, Wigan Athletic, Birmingham, and Burnley, so the back line has a bit more time to get back to full strength and the rest of the team has a chance to recover form before the big teams show up.
6. Inter Milan (Ita) 41
7. AC Milan (Ita) 37
8. Bordeaux (Fra) 36
9. Sevilla (Esp) 33
10. Bayer Leverkusen (Ger) 31
11. Tottenham Hotspur (Eng) 30
T12. Aston Villa (Eng) 25
T12. Juventus (Ita) 25
The Sick, Old Lady? Juventus, affectionately known in Italy as “The Old Lady”, has been on a run of devastating form the past few weeks. Several weeks ago they lost 2-0 to Cagliari, and it appeared to be a disappointing, but manageable defeat. The next week they went out and looked absolutely brilliant against a previously unbeatable (at least in Serie A) Inter side, and Juve were able to walk away with a 2-1 win. After that match, they appeared to be among the elite in Europe, sitting in second in Serie A and having beaten one of Europe’s undisputed top teams, Inter. Their next match was a Champions’ League matchup with Bayern Munich. Bayern had previously been floundering in the Bundesliga, but had been looking a bit better in the weeks leading up to the match. The match was more or less for all the marbles, with the winner moving on to the CL knockouts and the loser going to the Europa league. Bayern crushed them, 4-1, and Juve were back to their form against Cagliari. After the loss to Bayern, Juve looked awful in a 3-1 loss at Bari in Serie A play, and lost to bottom dwellers Catania this weekend, 2-1. It appears that the most likely cause of Juve’s dip in form is the dip in the form of Diego, their recently signed Brazilian midfield maestro. If his play continues to be sub-par, Juve may as well kiss goodbye any possibility of winning the Scudetto.
T14. Schalke 04 (Ger) 23
T14. Twente Enschede (Ned) 23
16.Valencia (Esp) 21
17. Manchester City (Eng) 16
18. PSV Eindhoven (Ned) 15
19. Werder Bremen (Ger) 14
20. FK Rubin Kazan (Rus) 11
21. Ajax Amsterdam (Ned) 10
22. Fiorentina (Ita) 8
23. Benfica (Por) 7
T24. Bayern Munich (Ger) 5
Bayern Munich is on a red-hot run in the Bundesliga, having not lost a match since late September. They have won their last four to rocket up to third in the league, only two points behind leaders Bayer Leverkusen. To go along with the great league form, they won two clutch matches against Maccabi Haifa and Juventus to secure advancement to the knockout rounds of the Champions League. This past weekend saw them beat bottom-feeders Hertha Berlin 5-2, for their second 5 goal game in a row and third on the season.
T24. Braga (Por) 5

Also Receiving Votes: Lyon (Fra) 3, Genoa (Ita) 2, Napoli (Ita) 1

Here is how the voters voted:

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

Next 5 in for Tom in Alphabetical Order: Dynamo Kiev (Ukr), Fenerbahce (Tur), Fiorentina (Ita), Hamburg SV (Ger), Marseille (Fra)

Next 5 in for Blaine in Reverse Alphabetical Order: Parma (Ita), Marseille (Fra), Lyon (Fra), Bayern Munich (Ger), AS Roma (Ita)

Champions League and Europa League knockout stages
The draws for the Round of 16 and Round of 32 of the Champions League and Europa League were held this past Friday. Matches will be played beginning in February. Here are the match-ups for the Champions League (Team listed first plays first leg at home):

Stuttgart v (1) Barcelona
Olympiakos v (8) Bordeaux
(6) Inter Milan v (3) Chelsea
(T24) Bayern Munich v (22) Fiorentina
CSKA Moscow v (9) Sevilla
Lyon v (2) Real Madrid
FC Porto v (T4) Arsenal
(7) AC Milan v (T4) Manchester United

And the Europa League match-ups (Team listed first plays first leg at home):
(20) FK Rubin Kazan v Hapoel Tel-Aviv
Athletic Bilbao v Anderlecht
Copenhagen v Marseille
Panathinaikos v AS Roma
Atletico Madrid v Galatasaray
(21) Ajax Amsterdam v (T12) Juventus
Club Brugge v (16) Valencia
Fulham v Shakhtar Donetsk
Liverpool v Unirea Urziceni
Hamburg SV v (18) PSV Eindhoven
Villarreal v Wolfsburg
Standard Liege v SV Salzburg
Twente Enschede v (19) Werder Bremen
Lille v Fenerbahce
Everton v Sporting Lisbon
Hertha Berlin v (23) Benfica