For a long time I had wanted to know, which club team could really be called European Champion. You say that`s why we have the Champions League? I lok upon the Champions league as a an analogue to the national Cup competitions, like the FA Cup. It is ripe with upsets and surprises, however heartwarming they are, noone would argue that FC Liverpool really is the best team in Europe. They are the fifth-best in England. That was found out after a series of 38 matches, where good fortune tend to even out and the team in first place can confidenztly called the season`s champion. Okay then we do not have a true European league and will we ever have? I want to introduce a virtual European League. It is based on the results of the various domestic leagues. The task was now to compare these leagues with each other. I compiled data from the last five years of Champions League, UEFA Cup and UI Cup play countrywise. Don`t despair, here`s an example: French clubs played 33 matches against German clubs during this 5-year period. The French clubs got 43 points (3 points per victory, 1 point per draw, extra time and penalty shoot out was ignored), German clubs got 46 points. That seams to mean that the German league is a tad stronger than the French league. But one has to make one important adjustment and that is for the strength of the clubs that played these 33 matches. The French team had an average of 1.55 points per game in their domestic league, while the German teams had an average of 1.74 points per game. Applying this adjustment leads us to see that in effect that a French league point is 6% more worth than a German one. It`s all somewhat more complicated than that, because the strengths of all leagues had to be combined and averaged. I will not get into the mathematical details behind this here, I`ll save that for a later post or a website that plan to set up. I just want you to understand the basic method that I use. And now the results: 1st Spain, and by a huge margin 2nd England, comfortable ahead of 3rd France, a surprise to me, just very, very slightly ahead of 4th Italy, again a wide margin to 5th Germany, clings on to a small lead over 6th Portugal, and 7th Scotland, 8th Netherlands 9th Switzerland, that`s a real surprise, so much that I checked the calculation three times for an error 10th Turkey That`s the top ten. The only thing that needs to be done now is to multiply each club`s point total with its country modifier. This modifier ranges from 1 for Spain to 0.579 for Turkey and just of the interest of it to Finland with 0.123. So here is the European League Top 25 table after the completion of the 2004/05 season: FC Barcelona 2.21 points Real Madrid 2.11 Chelsea London 2.08 Arsenal London 1.82 FC Villareal 1.72 Juventus Turin Manchester United Betis Sevilla Espanyol Barcelona Celtic Glsagow FC Sevilla Olympique Lyon AC Milan Glasgow Rangers PSV Eindhoven FC Valencia Bayern München Inter Milan Ajax Amsterdam Fenerbace Istanbul Deportivo La Coruna FC Malaga Atletico Bilbao FC Evereton OSC Lille I listed the point value for the top five clubs only. I plan to make regualr updates of this list once the season starts. I`,m looking forward to your comments and suggestions, but won`t be able to answer them for three weeks because I`m on vacation.
What's the diference between this and the UEFA ranking? What diferences you made, and why do you discriminate a ratio of points per team in each domestic league? I assume you're making calculations in an excel file, maybe u can post it later!
The difference between this and UEFA'S ranking? Well, on UEFA'S ranking Liverpool are FORTH whereas in this one Liverpool aren't anywhere. I guess that just about sums this nonsense up. P.S khucke, you say Liverpool are the fifth best side in England. Are you aware that Liverpool played EIGHTEEN more games that Everton last season with a crippling injury crisis to boot? I wonder where Everton would have finished had they played another 18 games. That's HALF a season on top. Oh and the last time they played each other, Liverpool beat Everton quite comfortably.
Hmmmmm, I didn't notice Porto not being on this ranking either. That just about completes this analysis LOL. Porto also not included after all they have achieved these last few years whereas Everton ARE?*shakes head and wanders off*.
Lol, you can't calculate all. What would be if Barca in the first leg wins 5:0 and than looses 1:0 against a weak team? Than they surely rested in the return match. So you can't sum up all and divide it than.
The UEFA ranks the countries, but doesn`t try to make the leagues comparable. That means UEFA says that the Spanish league is better than the Italian league, but not by how much. I calculated that one Spanish league point is equivalent to .831 English league point. I`m not sure I understand your second question, The foundation of the club ranking is solely the results from each domestic league. The European results are used to determine the relative strength of each country. UEFA assigns certain amounts of points for attaining certain feats, nothing wrong with that. I look at results only and I look at the domestic leagues, because quality is established over 38 games, each team olays each other twice. Besides if something makes no sense to you doesn`t mean it`s nonesense. This is not about honorable points for past achievements. Look up the Portuguese league table from last season, Porto is second with a relative low point total in a weaker league. In fact FC Porto is 45th in my ranking, Liverpool is 31st. I repeat I don`t look at the European games nor the domestic FA cups. How often has a 2nd division club reached a FA final and would you really argue this team was the second best team In England that year? The same thing applies to Liverpool, a mixture of an easier draw and showing the best when it counted most.
How about using this table to compare the leagues? # country 01/02 02/03 03/04 04/05 05/06 rank06 nt06 1 Spain 14.857 15.500 14.312 12.437 0.857 57.963 7/ 7 2 Italy 12.571 15.928 8.875 14.000 0.857 52.231 7/ 7 3 England 11.571 10.666 11.250 15.571 1.000 50.058 7/ 7 4 France 7.125 7.916 13.500 11.428 1.000 40.969 6/ 6 5 Portugal 9.375 10.750 10.250 8.166 1.000 39.541 6/ 6 6 Germany 13.500 9.142 4.714 10.571 1.000 38.927 7/ 7 7 Netherlands 10.166 6.166 5.416 12.000 0.500 34.248 6/ 6 8 Greece 11.250 7.166 4.166 6.166 0.500 29.248 6/ 6 The Portuguese league was the most competitive of the last season! The top 4 teams separated by 5 points? Relative low?? Porto lost the league by 3 points!! Past achievements?? You are talking about a team that won the Uefa cup 2 years ago, that won the Champions League 1 year ago, and that was in the last 16 in the Champions League last season!!
I know the UEFA table. How much better is the Spanish league compared, say, to the Greek league using that table? Tell me a number! You can`t? It only says who`s beter than the other nothing else. You failed to grasp my reasoning. Chelsea got 95 points in 38 games for 2.5 points per game, while Porto got 62 in 34 games for 1.82 points to game. The Portuguese league is weaker than the English league measured by the results in the European competions in the last 5 years. So a team that dominated a strong league has to be better ranked than a team that was a runner-up that weaker league. 2 years or 1 year ago are the past, I`m sorry!
1 Spain 14.857 15.500 14.312 12.437 0.857 57.963 7/ 7 2 Italy 12.571 15.928 8.875 14.000 0.857 52.231 7/ 7 3 England 11.571 10.666 11.250 15.571 1.000 50.058 7/ 7 4 France 7.125 7.916 13.500 11.428 1.000 40.969 6/ 6 5 Portugal 9.375 10.750 10.250 8.166 1.000 39.541 6/ 6 6 Germany 13.500 9.142 4.714 10.571 1.000 38.927 7/ 7 7 Netherlands 10.166 6.166 5.416 12.000 0.500 34.248 6/ 6 8 Greece 11.250 7.166 4.166 6.166 0.500 29.248 6/ 6 How hard can it be divide 57.963 / 29.248 and get a proportion between Spanish and Greek leagues? Or 52.231 / 50.058 and have the proportion between Italy and England? You dont need fancy formulas. The uefa coeficients are very acurate. They acount the points achieved by a team by itself in the last 5 years valued 66%, and the country points valued 33%, therefor giving a value for the strenght of the team, and an extra bonus for the weight of the league the team comes from!
Dude, it's completely obvious that your rankings system is flawed. So just give it up. Real Madrid better than Chelsea? Espanyol better than Milan? C'mon I hear the college BCS is looking for another rankings system so you might want to try there.