Some notes on the rankings... I added Spain's (recently restructured) second division. I'm not sure how accurate they are as they've only played a handful of games within a vacuum but I think they're in the general area. Kosovo's Mitrovica only has Champions League matches in there (3 wins, 5 losses). Will try to get their full league in next time. SL Benfica is a new club that's been running rampant in their first year in the topflight (+87 goal differential in 12 matches). Similar to Juventus' emergence, it will take some time to sort them out. But they're sitting 22nd right now. Finland's PK-35 Vantaa played in the CL but were relegated, I assume for financial reasons or something of the sort? Not sure what happened there but I don't have second division data for Finland. Couldn't find data for Sweden's extensive third division but I think the top teams there could fill in above the top 200 line. That's all I can think of off the top of my head but I'm sure there's more. If anyone would like to see a team's line graph comment below. Would be glad to offer some up : ) And if there are any obvious errors, please let me know! Full ratings here: https://www.everybodysoccer.com/eve...to/2019/1/2/top-200-european-club-elo-ratings Top 10 clubs 1. Lyon (France) - 2233 2. Wolfsburg (Germany) - 2084 3. Bayern München (Germany) - 1922 4. PSG (France) - 1848 5. Arsenal (England) - 1831 6. Chelsea (England) - 1803 7. Hoffenheim (Germany) - 1802 8. Barcelona (Spain) - 1772 9. Turbine Potsdam (Germany) - 1742 10. SGS Essen (Germany) - 1689 Top 10 climbers (past 6 months) 42. Benfica (Portugal) - 1327 (+235) 165. Durham (England) - 902 (+227) 15. Eskilstuna United (Sweden) - 1591 (+222) 153. Le Havre (France) - 917 (+181) 144. Selfoss (Iceland) - 926 (+179) 181. Åland United (Finland) - 875 (+173) 7. Hoffenheim (Germany) - 1802 (+164) 154. Shelbourne (Ireland) - 916 (+150) 27. Bordeaux (France) - 1435 (+149) 33. Vålerenga (Norway) - 1394 (+142) Biggest losses (past 6 months) 191. Mönchengladbach (Germany) - 845 (-255) 88. Bayern München II (Germany) - 1107 (-193) 119. Kungsbacka (Sweden) - 1011 (-183) 80. Kolbotn (Norway) - 1145 (-162) 151. Thór / KA (Iceland) - 921 (-159) 38. Birmingham City (England) - 1365 (-155) 129. Zürich (Switzerland) - 985 (-153) 104. Granadilla (Spain) - 1044 (-139) 73. Djurgården (Sweden) - 1181 (-137) 78. Arna-Bjørnar (Norway) - 1149 (-131) Lastly, I was trying to find league strength but not sure how to do it best (open to ideas) but I just weighted the top five clubs in each league and here's what I got. 1. Germany - 100 2. France - 96 3. England - 89 4. Sweden - 86 5. Spain - 76 6. Norway - 74 7. Portugal - 73 8. Italy - 67 9. Netherlands - 65 10. Sweden2 - 61 11. Germany2 - 61 12. Denmark - 60 13. Iceland - 60 14. Belgium - 55 15. Serbia - 51 16. Austria - 51 17. France2 - 51 18. Cyprus - 50 19. Turkey - 50 20. Israel - 50 21. Hungary - 49 22. Finland - 48 23. Kazakhstan - 47 24. Czech Republic - 47 25. Scotland - 47 26. Spain2 - 47 27. Ukraine - 46 28. England2 - 43 29. Ireland - 42 30. Switzerland - 40 31. Belarus - 39 32. Poland - 39 33. Bosnia and Herzegovina - 38 34. Germany3 - 37 35. Albania - 35 36. Greece - 35 37. Norway2 - 33 38. Russia - 30 39. Slovenia - 29 40. Kosovo - 28
Cool ranking, but something seems to be working in favour of the Portuguese clubs for sure. Can't see what they have ever done internationally to have 3 clubs above the Italian champions for example
Also a little weird to see two second-division leagues above Denmark's first division... I wouldn't expect bleed-down from the top German and Swedish clubs into the lower ranks to be that strong.
Agree with this. There are several Sweden 2 teams ahead of Levante and Athletic for example, that's definitely quite a bit off.
Appreciate the feedback everyone! : ) There aren't many opportunities for leagues to steal points from one another, except for the brief CL run. Fiorentina getting whomped by Slavia Praha (4-0, 5-0) pushes down the second-best team in Italy a bit. Braga had a nice enough run (going unscored on in the three qualifying games) before losing in a close series with Sparta Praha. Will be very interesting to see Benfica's run this next year. But it's hard to see how Italy v Portugal would square off when the two leagues' clubs don't actually play each other : / There's probably a better way to rate the leagues so that's fair. Not sure how to weigh them exactly. There's a fair amount of parity in Germany's and Sweden's second divisions so that's probably helping them out, where Denmark there is a noticeable drop off. Open to other ideas how to rate leagues though. Spain's midtable seems to keep beating itself, which is going to hold certain teams down. Levante, for example, tied Espanyol (winless this year) and they dropped because of it. I think the real test here is seeing how the promoted teams (Umeå and Uppsala) into the Damallsvenskan perform. KIF Örebro finished middle of the pack after getting promoted last year.
Yeah I understand it's near impossible to compare leagues when they so rarely meet. When did Fiorentina get whomped by Slavia? I think it's a problem to judge Swedish 2nd league by how the promoted teams do in Damallsvenskan the next year. No team that gets promoted survives in Damallsvenskan without strengthening their team. KIF Örebro for example had some really good signings that made a big difference.
Blah. Arsenal*, 4-0 and 2-0 in the round of 32. But yeah those were Fiorentina's only two matches in the whole CL : / Hopefully talk of expansion becomes a reality. I'd love to see them mimic the men's setup with home-and-aways until they get to the final 32. Ideally every team is constantly strengthening its side as well so while there will be some overhaul with promoted clubs' rosters, the rest of the league isn't just sitting idle. The players a promoted team are picking up are typically (but not always) the leftovers from the other clubs. I guess one could argue that promoted teams should get a bump in their elo rating (which I don't do) but either way, yes, they are upgrading but idk if I'd say their upgrades are creating a bigger difference than the rest of the league's. Plus relegated teams are always in for a fight to getting promoted. More often than not, relegated teams don't pull off the rebound promotion. Obviously they'll lose players in getting relegated but I do think that speaks more for the competitiveness of the second division than anything. Not trying to bark back or anything : ) This is as good as I can do without manually adjusting certain clubs' ratings. I think an ideal situation would be rating each player individually to show how strong each club is from the sum of their parts. That info isn't readily available so this is as good as it gets for now, until the CL expands and leagues start stealing points from one another.
I just think there seems to be some kind of problem in the system that give the division 2 teams too high a score, not just for Sweden. Same in Spain where there's a whole bunch of division 2 teams ranked higher than half the La Liga teams. Just makes no sense if you want it to reflect reality. Seems to pay off a lot more to be a top team in a lower division than a bottom team in a fairly even top division, or something like that.
@hotjam2, thanks for taking a look at the ratings : ) So for starters, these aren't my personal subjective ratings. They're just based on results. Turbine Potsdam has already dropped 60 points since the start of the season and look set to lose more in 2020. Here's their graph compared to Barcelona over the past few years. You can see TP's recent dip and Barca's emergence. Yeah the Spanish second division teams only have a dozen games in so I'm sure some of them are wildly off point. Not sure what to do about that until more games/seasons are under the belt, as they're playing in a vacuum essentially. I think there is relegation playoff that will happen? Not 100%. So that should shed some more light on the quality of teams. Think we just need more time but I'm open to tweaking the math if you have some ideas to better reflect reality.
I've finally gotten around to updating the list : ) https://everybodysoccer.com/even-the-goalkeepers-like-to/2019/1/2/top-200-european-club-elo-ratings Various notes: - There are a few teams with a handful of games, namely Portuguese and Spanish sides. So take those with a grain of salt. - The ratings really like Portuguese clubs. I think this is mainly due to not great/not terrible UCL performances, a decent amount of parity in the league, and the emergence of new clubs and a new structure to their top division. Portugal is ranked very low in UEFA's coefficient rankings (23rd) so it'll be interesting how the new CL structure impacts Portugal. I think the ratings here overrate Portuguese sides a little too much but I'm going to let the performances even it out and not manually adjust them. - Turkey's league has either not played since March of 2020 or else the match data eludes me. Top 10 clubs 1. Lyon (France) 2244 2. Wolfsburg (Germany) 2060 3. Bayern München (Germany) 2041 4. PSG (France) 1907 5. Chelsea (England) 1858 6. Barcelona (Spain) 1797 7. Hoffenheim (Germany) 1793 8. Manchester City (England) 1762 9. Turbine Potsdam (Germany) 1743 Top 10 climbers (past 6 months) 78. Lyn (Norway) - 1130 (+230) 241. Åsane (Norway) - 687 (+195) 228. TiPS (Finland) - 730 (+192) 70. Real Madrid (Spain) - 1168 (+168) 28. Rosenborg (Norway) - 1406 (+159) 15. Kristianstad (Sweden) -1582 (+156) 27. Manchester United (England) -1408 (+137) 34. Hammarby (Sweden) - 1376 (+137) 213. Pozoalbense (Spain) - 779 (+137) 174. Åland United (Finland) - 853 (+128) Biggest losses (past 6 months) 296. PK-35 Vantaa (Finland) - 553 (-261) 257. Zürich (Switzerland) - 647 (-227) 153. Bristol City (England) - 908 (-216) 47. Lillestrøm (Norway) - 1306 (-184) 38. Eskilstuna United (Sweden) - 1358 (-175) 146. Lidköping (Sweden) - 918 (-174) 64. Klepp (Norway) -1226 (-170) 287. Vendenheim (France) - 581 (-153) 130. Eibar (Spain) - 964 (-151) 185. Real Betis (Spain) - 835 (-148) Top Leagues average rating of the top five teams 1. Germany - 1846 2. France - 1703 3. England - 1599 4. Sweden - 1583 5. Norway - 1365 6. Spain - 1356 7. Portugal - 1316 9. Netherlands - 1193 8. Italy - 1176 10. Sweden2 - 1158 12. Denmark - 1119 11. Germany2 - 1116 13. Iceland - 1012 14. France2 - 952 15. Belgium - 929 16. Russia - 921 17. Spain2 - 902 18. Israel - 893 19. Austria - 871 20. Turkey - 832
The fact that Spain is still ranked below Sweden and Norway suggests, to me, that you need to really consider re-tooling whatever coefficients you've chosen to use in this particular Elo system, since it clearly isn't all the reflective of the current reality of things... On a similar note, seeing Barca in sixth, just behind Chelsea and PSG, isn't *so* weird by itself, but looking at the ratings, it's in sixth by a fairly large margin, which *is* weird. As another example. Madrid is 2W-2D-0L against ManCity, but is nearly 300pts below City in this ranking. I think the big problem is that there just aren't enough CL games versus domestic games to overcome the inertia of the system. It means that the inertia of the system is helping prop up leagues like Sweden and Norway over newer risers like Spain and Italy, especially with the CL coefficient structure making it hard for growing teams to have deep runs. It also means that a bad domestic campaign can tank good CL performances, even if the "bad" campaign is only marginally so, because there are so many more games for "barely bad" to compile over time and outweigh a small handful of "really good" CL games. Elo only works well if you have 15-30 games per team in each relevant pool, depending on the coefficients of the Elo system, and there certainly aren't enough CL games in a season to be meaningful. It's great looking inside any individual league, but trying to compare the different leagues with an Elo system using few data points, especially with the same Elo system used within the separate pools, seems like something that needs to be rethought/restructured to make it match better with what people are seeing on the field.
Don't disagree but with so limited crossover between leagues, no system is going to be great, unless you start adding subjective tweaking. The CL expansion is encouraging but there still won't be *that* many crossover matches between leagues. Spain suffers from a massive gap between the first two teams. Barca is 17-0 this year with only three goals against and an incredible +84 goal difference. Atletico Madrid, who has taken a fair amount of points from Man City in the past (attached graph), has dropped games to Santa Teresa (facing relegation) and lost 3-0 to Levante (who they themselves lost 3-0 to Barca). Atletico's last league win against Barca was December 2016. Whatever points Atletico gains in the UCL, it seems to just bleed back to Barca eventually. In contrast, Sweden has had four different league winners in the last four years and have had respectable CL runs in the past. I think the Chelsea/Atletico matchup will be really interesting. Atletico has had a pretty poor February so this would be a good launchpad to turn around their season.
This is a bit what I was getting at, but I think you can come up with robust systems that better represent things without leaning too much into subjectivity, though it depends on what your goal is. If you want to determine the strengths of the leagues relative to each other, it might make sense to consider nations in the CL generically instead of by-club. You could also throw in noncompetitive friendlies at lesser weight, but I'm sure you're not comfortable with throwing around "weights" like the FIFA Elo systems use for being too subjective. Still, almost every soccer Elo system out there uses *some* sort of weighting in making considerations for GD, opponent, competition, or some combination of those three. What is important, then, is finding a set of weightings that gives "reasonable" results, whatever "reasonable" means in context. As a mathematician by degree myself, I agree that math is great, and applied math is a very powerful tool when wielded judiciously, but applied math is only as good as it is meaningful. In addition to fiddling with weighting until they make sense, I've seen soccer Elo systems that apply single games multiple times (which is mechanically distinct from doubling the importance weighting of a game, especially depending on what order the doublings are used) and I've seen off-season nudging used to correct where teams are expected to be. As long as you use sensible justifications, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of subjectivity, especially if you can demonstrate the effect of said "subjective" choices by doing sensitivity testing OR justify the results with external evaluation calculations. In fact, the fact that Elo systems always include an "expected result" when calculating points exchange, it's not too hard to set up statistical tests to see how well those expected results match the actual results. You can then start testing weighting systems with those statistical tests until you find the weighting system that minimizes the differences between expected and actual. In other words, if you empirically test your "subjective" choices thoroughly and extensively enough, those tests can greatly reduce how "subjective" the choices actually are. The big problem I see with this explanation is this is exactly the situation seen in France (or seen back in England when it was all-Arsenal-all-the-time) with a *massive* gap between the CL clubs and everyone else. In one sense, it doesn't help explain why Spain's top teams are being "kept down" more than France's top teams are. It also emphasizes my point from earlier that the points separations from past CL campaigns have been baked into each individual league in a way that slows movement over time, because the large number of league games insulates teams from their CL results.
All good points. So diving a little deeper into Spain's top four... 1. Barcelona - Since the summer of 2016, they're 2-1-7 (W-T-L) against the five teams above them. 6th in the world seems fair there. 2. Levante - Have not qualified for CL since 2008-09. Finished third last season and lost all three matchups (-9 GD) when playing teams above them. Turned a corner this year by beating Atletico for the first time in 4+ years so their boost in the standings to 65 seems fair. (They haven't made CL in a decade and rarely beat the teams above them in league play.) 3. Real Madrid - Will most definitely end up higher. They're currently anchored a little with only have 13 league matches played (before Jan1). I try not to let new teams skyrocket just to be safe. Currently they're sitting 70th but they seem closer to 30th imo. Once they get more games in, they'll naturally slide up. I ran into this exact problem with Juventus not too long ago and actually ended up overrating them. Not sure what the prefect approach should be but I'd rather underrate a new club than overrate them, personally. 4. Atletico - Have fallen off a bit this season, as previously mentioned. Sitting 23rd while in a bad slump seems more than fair. Could Spain be higher? Maybe a little but the league is in flux with new investment but haven't really shown results to prove they deserve to be higher. Yes, Atletico has handled Man City well in four matches but their last three matches against Barca were 6-1, 0-0, 3-0 and have struggled against teams Barca is absolutely crushing. I could tweak the weighted values endlessly with this but the minor movements it would make would likely upset a Swedish fan, ha. They're not perfect, but it's better than the alternative (nothing, atm).
Well, as I said earlier, my issue was not with their position of 6th, but the margin by which their rating is behind those above them. Their GD over those 10 matches is -9, which is pretty darn close and suggests their rating shouldn't be too far below the average rating of the five teams above them. This kind of helps make my point, honestly, in how current league form is having too much influence on the numbers. Atletico's close 0-1 loss to Barca in the UWCL isn't that long ago, and they spent several seasons since the summer of 2016 (your reference point earlier) as league champions ahead of Barca. Now, just looking at GD in those seasons, you *could* say that in many of those seasons, Barca was the better team and just had a bad head-to-head with Atletico, (and I personally believe that Barca *is* better) but then you're getting into subjective arguments about whether GD is more indicative of relative strength or raw results is more indicative... And that's a *very* subjective decision that any Elo soccer system has to make, so that's one assumption that absolutely needs to be evaluated and fine-tuned. Plus, if you're willing to argue about bad match-ups, you could make the case that PSG is a bad match-up for Barca, in which case it would make sense for Barca to have a rating between Wolfsburg and Bayern.
The one that gives me the chuckle is Real Madrid and Lyn are 70 and 78. Real Madrid has quality internationals from all over the world like Kosovare Asllani, Sofia Jakonsson, Thaisa, Daiane, Babett Peter, Kenti Robles, etc. While Lyn is just a local community club from a town of a little over 600K that usually supplies half the teams in the women's league. I'm a huge fan of Lyn but comparing them to a team like Real Madrid is comparing apples to elephants.
Can't. Elo systems require teams to actually play games against each other so they can gain and lose points. Heck, any quantitative system needs those direct comparisons. Otherwise, you really are getting into nothing but subjective evaluations that lack any rigor.
Well, yes, but if you're trying to compare several leagues' worth of teams, and only have five or fewer cross-pool games per year, that still leaves far too many teams without those points of comparison. Also, IIRC, the OP's Elo system doesn't include friendlies (2019 version of this thread?).
Updated list for the top 200 clubs in Europe. Top 10 clubs 1. Lyon (France) 2191 2. Barcelona (Spain) 2039 3. Bayern München (Germany) 2029 4. Wolfsburg (Germany) 1879 5. PSG (France) 1873 6. Hoffenheim (Germany) 1812 7. Chelsea (England) 1810 8. Arsenal (England) 1734 9. Rosengård (Sweden) 1724 10. Turbine Potsdam (Germany) 1695 Top 10 climbers (past 6 months) 139. RB Leipzig (Germany) +272 15. Sandviken (Norway) +220 121. Zhytlobud-1 (Ukraine) +202 184. Nürnberg (Germany) +187 136. Internazionale (Italy) +183 13. Juventus (Italy) +174 55. Fleury 91 (France) +141 2. Barcelona (Spain) +136 57. Real Sociedad (Spain) +128 181. Maccabi Kishronot Hadera (Israel) +158 Biggest losses (past 6 months) 98. Breidablik (Iceland) -288 16. Manchester City (England) -222 161. Birmingham City (England) -220 111. Klepp (Norway) -192 164. Wolfsburg II (Germany) -190 76. Avaldsnes (Norway) -155 92. Uppsala (Sweden) -147 125. Bayern München II (Germany) -137 168. Bristol City (England) -131 91. Anderlecht (Belgium) -130 Top Leagues average rating of the top five teams 1. Germany - 1814 2. France - 1667 3. Sweden - 1579 4. England - 1564 5. Spain - 1434 6. Portugal - 1403 7. Norway - 1400 8. Netherlands - 1245 9. Italy - 1233 10. Sweden2 - 1127 11. Denmark - 1124 12. Germany2 - 1043 13. Russia - 1033 14. Austria - 928 15. Iceland - 913 16. France - 908 17. Israel - 865 18. Turkey - 863 19. Belgium - 817 20. Spain2 - 774 21. Kazakhstan - 740 22. Belarus - 715 23. Finland - 671 24. Norway2 - 630 25. England2 - 619 26. Hungary - 563 27. Ireland - 544 28. Czech Republic - 534 29. Serbia - 524 30. Italy - 488 General Notes - Once again, I think the complaints about not enough cross-league play are fair. The Champions League expansion helped a little bit but just one run through won't move the needle a ton, yet. - There was some discussion about current teams being too low/high last time. When I'm solely working off results, it's difficult to correctly place clubs if they're either new or have recently taken a positive/negative turn. Depending on a few things, it can take up to 20 games to really get a team properly adjusted, especially if their domestic games are not competitive enough. So for our new clubs like Feyenoord (13 matches before Jan 1) or Fenerbahçe (3 matches), they could go anywhere moving forward. - Of the big movers/losers, England's top teams got hit pretty hard recently. The WSL actually has decent parity (compared to other leagues) and Chelsea/Man City didn't have a great CL showing. So the top teams have moved down while the middle teams have jumped a bit. - The CL group stage was really interesting and provided a number of good games, although the groups' difficulties ranged. Group D, for example, had four teams in the top 13, while group B had two teams outside the top 100. I think the current UEFA coefficients and pathway to the group stage are going to continue to allow for random minnows to slip through. Not sure if they're keeping the same setup for the 2022-23 run though.
Interesting list as always! I think some formula is screwing the Spanish league, a lot of Spanish teams are ranked strangely low despite all their teams always doing well in CL. I like Swedish teams but they seem to be favoured in the ranking somehow. For example, how on earth did Atletico Madrid, Levante and Real Madrid end up below Umeå and KIF Örebro