The Top 10 European clubs

Today is Champions League Preview Day, and to complement The Game's brilliant coverage, I give you the follow-up to my Top 10 of international football. This is the Top 10 European clubs.

The principle is the same as in that previous post: what would be the result if we took the last two games played against each other by the top European teams and arranged the outcome in a straight league format, with three points for a win and one for a draw? In other words, let's put the 'league' into the Champions League.

Choosing the candidates for this Top 10 could be open to debate, of course, but as this is only a small-scale trial, I have gone for names that are established, qualify every year or almost for the Champions League (which is where they face the other top teams), have won the trophy, make it through the group phase regularly, and attract the best players.

So, the nominated teams are the England Big Four (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United), the Italy Big Three (Inter, Juventus, Milan), the Spain Big Two (Barcelona, Real Madrid) and the Germany Big One (Bayern). Tough luck on Lyons, Porto, PSV, Olympiacos and others, for the moment.

I have chosen the last two competitive matches, of any kind, played between each team. This means that clubs from the same country will enter results from their home league and/or cups, if these are more recent (as normally happens) than their European meetings, which are made more difficult to occur because UEFA rules block the possibility of it happening before the quarter-finals. Chelsea have never played Inter, I think, so until they do, I have given them two 0-0 draws as token results. So, without further ado, this is the resulting table:

(Position / (Won-Drawn-Lost) / Points)

1 (9-6-3) 33 SPA Barcelona
1 (9-6-3) 33 ENG Liverpool
3 (9-4-5) 31 ENG Manchester United
4 (7-9-2) 30 ENG Chelsea
5 (6-6-6) 24 ITA Inter Milan
6 (5-6-7) 21 GER Bayern Munich
6 (5-6-7) 21 ITA Juventus
8 (5-5-8) 20 ENG Arsenal London
9 (4-7-7) 19 ITA AC Milan
10 (3-1-14) 10 SPA Real Madrid

Spain currently leads the international Top 10, and a Spanish team leads the European club version too, if we break the tie in favour of the current holders of the trophy. I haven't worked out the goal difference, because, as I got told in the comments to my last post, I have to get out more, but feel free to do it yourselves if you want (results supplied at the end of this post).

Some thoughts on it: football is a difficult game to put everyone in agreement as to who is the best, as opposed to the way they do things in America, for example, where there's only one trophy per team sport. You win the NBA, the NFL or the NHL, and that's it, you're the best, full stop. Soccer doesn't work like that, but sometimes, whichever way you look at it, you can have the satisfaction that justice is being done. Barcelona were considered the best footballing team around en route to the 2009 final, then they won the trophy, and now these head-to-head results confirm it too. They are top of the pile, and deservedly so, whichever way you look at it, but this won't always happen.

Liverpool: with this evidence, the next time their supporters hear someone say the Reds are punching above their weight, maybe they could feel like punching the offender above their waist. Liverpool have got the trophies, the appearances in finals and the face-to-face results to show they deserve to be where they are, at least in European terms. The Premiership is another matter.

England overall does exceptionally well and justifies the inclusion of four teams in this Top 10, although it really helps that they qualify year after year. After all, each of them have lost a Champions League final in the last four years. United in 2009, Chelsea in 2008, Liverpool in 2007 and Arsenal in 2006. I know, it's a bit of selective reading of data, but how about that for a trivia question?

And surely, one of the most revealing and surprising bits (or not) is the bottom team of the list, both because of its identity, and because of the really horrendous record of only three wins (against Milan, Inter and United) and a draw (against Arsenal) in 18 games. Remember Florentino Perez's idea for a proper European league, maybe not exactly like this one, but with the aim of seeing more matches between the best teams? Well, on the strength of Real's latest results, maybe he'd prefer to change his mind.

As before, I'll be happy to read comments on this, and if anyone spots a wrong result, or a more recent one I might have overlooked, let me know. Anyway, this table will start changing from this week, as the group phase for 2009-10 is going to give us in the next few weeks fresh results for Juve v Bayern, Inter v Barcelona, and Real v Milan. Enjoy the European season.

TOP 10 EUROPEAN FOOTBALL CLUB LEAGUE

CFi – Champions League Final
CSF – Champions League Semi-final
CQF – Champions League Quarter-final
C2R – Champions League 2nd round
CGS – Champions League Group stage
CG2 – Champions League 2nd group stage
CWC – Cup Winners’ Cup
ESC – European Supercup
NLe – National league
NSC – National Supercup

(Match / Date / Competition)

Man 3 Che 0 2009-01-10 NLe
Man 2 Che 2 2009-08-09 NSC
Man 1 Liv 4 2009-03-14 NLe
Man 1 Liv 2 2009-09-12 NLe
Man 1 Ars 0 2009-04-29 CSF
Man 2 Ars 1 2009-08-29 NLe
Man 2 Int 0 2009-03-11 C2R
Man 0 Int 0 2009-02-24 C2R
Man 0 Mil 3 2007-05-03 CSF
Man 3 Mil 2 2007-04-25 CSF
Man 3 Juv 0 2003-02-25 CG2
Man 2 Juv 1 2003-02-19 CG2
Man 4 Rea 3 2003 CQF
Man 1 Rea 3 2003 CQF
Man 0 Bar 2 2009 CFi
Man 1 Bar 0 2008 CSF
Man 0 Bay 0 2002 CG2
Man 1 Bay 1 2002 CG2
Che 4 Liv 4 2009-04-14 CQF
Che 3 Liv 1 2009-04-08 CQF
Che 4 Ars 1 2009-05-10 NLe
Che 2 Ars 1 2009-04-18 NCu
Che – Int
Che - Int
Che 1 Mil 1 2000 CGS
Che 0 Mil 0 2000 CGS
Che 2 Juv 2 2009 C2R
Che 1 Juv 0 2009 C2R
Che 1 Rea 0 1998 ESC
Che 2 Rea 1 1971 CWC
Che 1 Bar 1 2009 CSF
Che 0 Bar 0 2009 CSF
Che 2 Bay 3 2005 CQF
Che 4 Bay 2 2005 CQF
Liv 4 Ars 4 2009-04-21 NLe
Liv 1 Ars 1 2008-12-21 NLe
Liv 1 Int 0 2008 C2R
Liv 2 Int 0 2008 C2R
Liv 1 Mil 2 2007 CFi
Liv 3 Mil 3 2005 CFi
Liv 0 Juv 0 2005 CQF
Liv 2 Juv 1 2005 CQF
Liv 4 Rea 0 2009 C2R
Liv 1 Rea 0 2009 C2R
Liv 0 Bar 1 2007 C2R
Liv 2 Bar 1 2007 C2R
Liv 3 Bay 2 2001 ESC
Liv 1 Bay 1 1981 CSF
Ars 5 Int 1 2004 CGS
Ars 0 Int 3 2004 CGS
Ars 2 Mil 0 2008 C2R
Ars 0 Mil 0 2008 C2R
Ars 0 Juv 0 2006 CQF
Ars 2 Juv 0 2006 CQF
Ars 0 Rea 0 2006 C2R
Ars 1 Rea 0 2006 C2R
Ars 1 Bar 2 2006 CFi
Ars 2 Bar 4 2000 CGS
Ars 1 Bay 0 2005 C2R
Ars 1 Bay 3 2005 C2R
Int 2 Mil 1 2009-02-15 NLe
Int 4 Mil 0 2009-08-31 NLe
Int 1 Juv 1 2009-04-18 NLe
Int 1 Juv 0 2008-11-22 NLe
Int 3 Rea 1 1999 CGS
Int 0 Rea 2 1999 CGS
Int 0 Bar 0 2003 CG2
Int 0 Bar 3 2003 CG2
Int 0 Bay 2 2007 CGS
Int 1 Bay 1 2007 CGS
Mil 1 Juv 1 2009-05-10 NLe
Mil 2 Juv 4 2008-12-14 NLe
Mil 1 Rea 3 2003 CG2
Mil 1 Rea 0 2003 CG2
Mil 0 Bar 0 2006 CSF
Mil 0 Bar 1 2006 CSF
Mil 2 Bay 0 2007 CQF
Mil 2 Bay 2 2007 CQF
Juv 2 Rea 1 2009 CGS
Juv 2 Rea 0 2009 CGS
Juv 2 Bar 1 2003 CQF
Juv 1 Bar 1 2003 CQF
Juv 1 Bay 2 2006 CGS
Juv 2 Bay 1 2006 CGS
Rea 0 Bar 2 2009 NLe
Rea 2 Bar 6 2009 NLe
Rea 1 Bay 2 2007 C2R
Rea 3 Bay 2 2007 C2R
Bar 1 Bay 1 2009 CQF
Bar 4 Bay 0 2009 CQF

Answers here or at:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/fanzine_fanzone/2009/09/champions-league-fanzone-the-top-10-european-clubs.html