A Comprehensive Weekly Look at the Top Teams in European Football

Good day and welcome to yet another edition of the Weekly Top 25 European Football Clubs. This week saw a few interesting matches, starting with Chelsea’s 7-2 massacre, drubbing, manslaughter, or whatever else you want to call it, of a respectable Sunderland club. To make that score even more correct, one of Sunderland’s 2 goals was more or less a stoppage time charity goal, so let’s just call it 7-1.5 or so. Manchester United finally got back to their old ways with a convincing 3-0 win over Burnley, although their unimpressive first half (0-0 at halftime) left much to be desired. It’s tough, however, to complain about a 3-0 win, so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was a good solid match. Juventus continued their remarkably bad form with a 1-0 loss to Chievo Verona, making that 4 losses in their last 5 Serie A matches. They now sit in 5th, 13 points behind leaders Inter Milan. AC Milan, on the other hand, continues to look like the AC Milan of 2004, with an impressive 4-0 win over Siena where Ronaldinho scored a hattrick. This could bode as bad news for Manchester United, as they’ll be playing Milan in the Champions’ League knockout stages. Another club who appears to be sneaking up on the Serie A leaders is AS Roma, who won their 6th straight Serie A home match this weekend to move into 3rd. New signing Luca Toni had a brace, and they comfortably won 3-0. In Spain, Real Madrid suffered a crushing defeat to Bilbao, 1-0. This defeat was made even worse by the fact that La Liga leaders Barcelona crushed Sevilla 4-0. Speaking of Sevilla, what the heck happened to them?! After climbing as high as 3rd in La Liga (possibly 2nd, not entirely sure), they’ve now lost a whopping 4 in a row and sit in 6th, 16 points behind Barcelona. Valencia continues to scorch anyone brave enough to play them, with a 4-1 win over Villareal this weekend. They’ve now climbed to 3rd, and David Villa appears to be playing on another planet with the form he’s been on lately. In Germany, Bayer Leverkusen continued its unbeaten run on the season with a 4-2 win against Mainz. They remain a point ahead of Schalke 04, who were 1-0 winners against Nurnberg, and two points ahead of Bayern Munich, who is on a five-match win streak in the Bundesliga after a 2-0 win against TSG Hoffenheim. Bordeaux remains far atop Ligue 1 in France after a 1-1 draw against a strong 4th place Marseille team. Sitting seven points behind Bordeaux in second place is Lille, who won 3-1 over Paris Saint-Germain. One point behind Lille is Montpellier who defeated Nice 1-0 after a tough midweek loss to AS Monaco in Ligue 1 action. Rangers extended their advantage in the Scottish Premier League to 9 points over second place Celtic. Rangers defeated Hamilton Academical 1-0 and Celtic drew last-place Falkirk 1-1.

Biggest Riser: AS Roma, who went from receiving 1 vote to 19th place in the rankings on the heels of a 10 game unbeaten streak in Serie A.

Biggest Faller: Juventus, who fell from 12th to 21st after their 4th loss in 5 games, 1-0 at Chievo Verona. AS Roma and Juventus meet up in Turin next weekend in a match-up of teams going in opposite directions at the moment.

1. Barcelona (Esp) 50
2. Chelsea (Eng) 47
3. Inter Milan (Ita) 45
4. Real Madrid (Esp) 44
T5. AC Milan (Ita) 42
T5. Arsenal (Eng) 42
7. Manchester United (Eng) 38
8. Bordeaux (Fra) 34
9. Valencia (Esp) 33
T10. Bayer Leverkusen (Ger) 31
T10. Tottenham Hotspur (Eng) 31
T12. Bayern Munich (Ger) 26
T12. Schalke 04 (Ger) 26
14. Twente Enschede (Ned) 25
15. Manchester City (Eng) 20
16. PSV Eindhoven (Ned) 18
17. Aston Villa (Eng) 16
18. Ajax Amsterdam (Ned) 15
T19. AS Roma (Ita) 12
T19. Benfica (Por) 12
21. Juventus (Ita) 10
T22. Braga (Por) 9
T22. Fiorentina (Ita) 9
T24. FK Rubin Kazan (Rus) 4
T24. Lyon (Fra) 4
T24. Napoli (Ita) 4

Also Receiving Votes: Mallorca (Esp) 2, Marseille (Fra) 1

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

Next five in for Tom, in order of how much I want to visit the team’s home country: Deportivo La Coruna (Esp), Hamburg SV (Ger), Lille (Fra), Anderlecht (Bel), Dynamo Kiev (Ukr)

Next five in for Blaine, in order of how much I want to attend a match at that team’s home stadium: Galatasaray (Tur), Werder Bremen (Ger), Genoa (Ita), FK Rubin Kazan (Rus), Benfica (Por)