A Comprehensive Weekly Look at the Top Teams in European Football

Another week of European Soccer Rankings! We had some good European action and a great batch of domestic league games this week so there should be a lot of movement in the rankings. Notice that Chelsea now has some company at the top of the standings! Here is a summary of mine and Blaine’s arguments (as written by Blaine):

“I know that it’s real disappointing to have a tie for first place in these rankings. However, I couldn’t with a clear conscience vote Chelsea over Barça this week. Chelsea had a decent win over a fine FC Porto club midweek, then a huge 3-0 win over Arsenal earlier today. However, Barça had a much more impressive mid-week win over previous juggernaut Inter Milan. Even though they only lost 2-0, Inter was far more outclassed than the score would suggest, and Barça basically dominated every facet of the match from start to finish. I basically said after that match that if Barça wins El Clàsico today, it would be really difficult to not rank them first. This morning, as I said, Chelsea crushed Arsenal. However this afternoon I saw a truly magnificent performance by Barça against Real Madrid. After losing a man in the 60th minute, Barça held together and didn’t allow Madrid to score despite numerous chances, due to world class defense and some brilliant midfield work by Iniesta, Messi, and Xavi. I really couldn’t not rank Barça first, with 2 victories as impressive as these.I can definitely see where Tom is coming from, however. Chelsea has not only been absolutely murdering their Premiership competition, but they've been playing quite well in the Champions' League. They appear to be the class of by far the best league in Europe, and should certainly make a deep run in the Champions' League, but I really think that overall Barça is the better, deeper, and more talented squad.”

However, there were indeed other teams that played football this weekend. We saw a tale of two halves as Manchester United scored 3 in the second half to defeat Portsmouth 4-1. Aston Villa and Tottenham battled to an exciting 1-1 draw in a match that may have an impact on Champions League positions come the end of the season. Manchester City managed to extend the record-setting draw streak to 7 with a 1-1 score line against Hull City. In Scotland, Celtic returned to the top of the table by virtue of a 3-1 win over St. Mirren and 1-0 loss for Rangers at Aberdeen. Sevilla missed a chance to run with the big boys with a disappointing 2-2 draw at home against lowly Malaga. Inter continued their dominance of Serie A with a solid 1-0 win over Fiorentina, dropping Fiorentina to a very surprising 10th in the league. Juventus dropped vital points at Cagliari, AC Milan won at Catania on two injury-time goals by Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, and Genoa defeated Sampdoria 3-0 in a very rowdy, if not one-sided, Genoa derby. In France, AJ Auxerre saw their run at the top of the table end with a 1-0 loss at Paris Saint-Germain and a 3-0 win for Bordeaux at AS Nancy Lorraine. Bayer Leverkusen continued their unbeaten streak in the Bundesliga with an impressive 4-0 win over Stuttgart and Bayern Munich has risen all the way to 4th win a nice 3-0 win over Hannover 96. Werder Bremen and Wolfsburg played out to a thrilling 2-2 draw, where Edin Dzeko grabbed the lead for Wolfsburg in the 85th, only to see Per Mertesaker grab a point for Werder Bremen in the 90th. Ajax got another 5-1 win, their third in four games, and both Twente Enschede and PSV Eindhoven got the full three points as well in the Netherlands. Olympiakos took a one point lead in the Greek Super League with their 2-0 win over Panathinaikos, and Rapid Vienna and Red Bull Salzburg decided nothing with their 0-0 draw, and are still tied atop the Austrian Bundesliga standings. In Russia, FK Rubin Kazan officially won the title, with Spartak Moscow and Zenit St. Petersburg grabbing the Champions League spots. Lokomotiv Moscow and CSKA Moscow should both see time in Europe next fall as they finished fourth and fifth respectively. A big thank you to anyone who has actually read this far, here is the good stuff:

Biggest Riser: Bordeaux, from 17 up to 12 after a very good 2-0 win over Juventus and a 3-0 win in the league.

Biggest Faller: Manchester City, Sevilla, Juventus, and Lyon all dropped four spots. Sevilla’s drop was most dramatic, from 5 to 9.

An interesting note: This is the least amount of teams that we have ever had in the “receiving votes” section. This should mean that the rankings of Blaine and I are becoming more and more similar. However, that does not really seem to be the case just looking at them side-by-side. I think it is simply that the divide between teams that should be in the rankings and teams that should not be in the rankings is becoming slightly clearer. Where to rank those teams, however, is not.

Rank Team (Nationality) Points
T1. Barcelona (Esp) 49
Blaine: I didn’t really care for either team in this morning’s “El Clàsico”, I was really just hoping for fair play and lots of bicycle kicks, and perhaps a 5-4 final score. Unfortunately we got a 1-0 final score, with a very impressive showing by both clubs, and a match that was much more exciting than the scoreline would indicate. I learned quite a bit about both clubs from this match. I found out that money really can improve the heck out of your club, as Madrid played wonderfully just a few months after losing at home 6-2 to a worse Barça side (same club more or less but with Eto’o rather than Zlatan Ibrahimovic). However they simply didn’t play well enough. Madrid didn’t finish their chances, partly due to some ridiculous play by Barça captain Carlos Puyol. This match, however, absolutely confirmed what I suspected earlier in the week after Barça’s 2-0 thrashing of Inter Milan, and that is that they’re the best club in Europe. The 2-0 win over Inter was much, much more of a slaughter than the score would suggest, as Inter basically got their butts handed to them all day. Today, they held together after going down a man for nearly 30 minutes, and somehow managed to beat Real Madrid (with a relatively healthy Cristiano Ronaldo). Basically, Barça beating the previously ranked 3rd and 6th clubs merits their jumping to 1st, despite Chelsea’s very impressive 3-0 massacre of Arsenal.
T1. Chelsea (Eng) 49
Tom: Chelsea have not lost a match since a 2-1 away defeat to Aston Villa on October 17. They have also only drawn once since then, a Champions League fixture at Atletico Madrid. This week they again proved why they (should) consistently hold the top spot in these rankings with an impressive 1-0 win at FC Porto then a 3-0 thrashing of Arsenal at the Emirates in which they out-classed their opponent on every level. At this point it is hard to make an argument for anybody besides Chelsea winning the best league in Europe, as long as they stay healthy and on form as they have been all season long. United is not the same squad without Ronaldo and some players there are in poor form anyways, and the van Persie injury erases almost all hope of an Arsenal comeback now that they are 11 points back of the leaders. Chelsea is winning each game by an average of exactly 2 goals each and at this rate they have effectively turned the Premier League into a race for Champions League positions.
3. Manchester United (Eng) 45
4. Inter Milan (Ita) 43
T5. AC Milan (Ita) 42
T5. Real Madrid (Spa) 42
T7. Arsenal (Eng) 34
T7. Bayer Leverkusen (Ger) 34
9. Sevilla (Spa) 32
Tom: Sevilla is coming off of a brutal week in which they lost at Champions League minnow Unirea Urziceni 1-0, and followed it up with a bad 2-2 draw at home with Malaga, a game in which they were even down 2-0 at a point. Malaga currently sits in a three-way tie at the bottom of La Liga. Luis Fabiano saved Sevilla with three goals this time, but as these are volatile rankings, they will certainly drop considerably. Sevilla could have drawn even with Real Madrid with the full three points, and manager Manolo Jimenez reflects: “We lost a tremendous opportunity to close the gap to Barcelona and Madrid and distance ourselves from two of the teams chasing us, but football is so unpredictable.” However, they have a chance to win their Champions League group outright with a match against lowly Rangers in a little over a week, so that should ready them for the second half of the season with a possible title run.
10. Tottenham Hotspur (Eng) 31
11. Juventus (Ita) 30
12. Bordeaux (Fra) 28
13. FK Rubin Kazan (Rus) 24
T14. Twente Enschede (Ned) 22
T14. Werder Bremen (Ger) 22
16.Ajax Amsterdam (Ned) 18
17. Lyon (Fra) 17
18. Valencia (Spa) 16
19. Manchester City (Eng) 15
Tom: Manchester City has embarked on a remarkable run of 7 straight draws. This last one came in 1-1 form home against Hull City. There should be of some concern as the draw run has included the likes of Wigan, Fulham, Birmingham, Burnley, and Hull City. Next week City welcome leaders Chelsea, and a win would be most welcome to both them and rivals United, as Chelsea has an easy fixture list in the league until they host Arsenal on February 6.
20. Fiorentina (Ita) 12
T21. PSV Eindhoven (Ned) 10
T21. Schalke 04 (Ger) 10
23. CSKA Moscow (Rus) 9
24. Genoa (Ita) 5
25. Braga (Por) 4

Also Receiving Votes: Hamburg SV (Ger) 3, Dynamo Kiev (Ukr) 2, AJ Auxerre (Fra) 1, Sampdoria (Ita) 1


Here is how the voters voted:

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

Next 5 in for Tom, in order from least to most vowels in the team name: Braga (Por), Benfica (Por), Marseille (Fra), Sampdoria (Ita), Deportivo La Coruna (Spa)

Next 5 in for Blaine, in reverse alphabetical order: Schalke 04 (Ger), Napoli (Ita), Marseille (Fra), Dynamo Kiev (Ukr), AJ Auxerre (Fra)

Hope everyone has a fantastic week, with some Carling Cup action and the Europa League coming our way! Only 4 days until the World Cup Draw!!!! Noon ET on ESPN2 on December 4!!!