I've been doing some research in the past weeks on world club rankings and couldn't find any that were at least "semi-official" or had any good formulas behind them. Nevertheless, I was wondering why no such good ranking existed. For example: The FSC rankings that are put out I believe several times a month are horrible. They include Hearts of Midlothian in their top 35 and have other clubs ranked too high as well. But that ranking has no logic behind it and is voted on by FSI writers. So I started taking some notes on what should weigh in on a good world club ranking system and came up with some things that are obvious and some that could be "on the border"...things like the result of a game between two teams should inflict on a team's ranking (obviouslly)...the type of match (friendly, UEFA CUP, CL, domestic, etc.) as well....but should the goals scored/goals allowed also play a factor of a team's ranking? If anyone else want's get a bit into this whole creating a more or less logical ranking system, feel free to help. If anyone has any ranking systems that they might of created themselves, also feel free to post your ideas or show some of your examples. Together, i'm sure we'll come up with some sort of system that will show which clubs are truly the best in the world (that's right...including N.A. and S.A. and ASIA AND AFRICA! Not just Europe).
All of what you say makes sense.You can rate sides from the same league fairly easily using some kind of smoothed average of their goals for/goals against records and then use inter country results to see how these individual leagues interlock. Problems arise if you get teams that play very few European games(usually because they aren't very good).You can try to get around this by lumping all games played by teams from a particular smaller country together. Intercontinenal games are a much bigger problem.Games are few and far between and when they do take place that have too much of an exhibition atmosphere about them. Some other minor pitfalls include the two legged nature of many Euopean games.In virtually every competetion where two legs are played there's a skewed home advantage.If a team gets an inbalance of home legs as their second leg,it can in turn badly skew any derived rating. Agree on Hearts,btw I make them about a top 5 English Championship side,a bottom 3 Le championnat side,a mid table Spanish second diviion side,a bottom of the table Bundesliga side or a top 5 Serie B side. T
Some time ago I developed a system to compare the European leagues and their teams. Here`s a brief explanation from a previous posting of mine: 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? 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. I believe this to be the best method that I know of, unless someone can point out a major flaw in it. The current first ten: FC Barcelona FC Chelsea Manchester United AC Milan Olympique Lyon FC Valencia FC Sevilla Real Madrid FC Liverpool FC Porto for those who are curious the next ten FC Osasuna Celtic Glasgow Bayern Munich Celta Vigo Inter Milan Sporting Lissabon Werder Bremen PSV Eindhoven AS Rom FC Getafe I also thought about a world rating, but I could not think of a measure to compare the South American or MLS teams to the European ones, since there is no interaction between them, except for some less than meaningful exhibition games.
I like the ranking system you've got, could you show the formula you used. This seems fascinating to me. Also, what years are you using for the points each club earned? Just the current season, of the same 5-year period?
Thank you for your interest! As you asked for the precise formulas there all in my spreadsheet, that is not very tidily set up and therefore not very user-friendly. Besides I`m a little hesitant to give away all the details. I am convinced that it is a very well conceived and mathematically sound system that I regard as my intellectual property. Other than that I`m happy to share the theorectical and practical underpinnings. As I said I compare a league`s strength by the results that its clubs have in various European competitions. Here`s an example: Points gained Games played Points per game pergame in domestic league Spain 56.29 38 1.658 England 46.57 38 1.923 My assumption is that there are no wild swings in a league`s quality, so I put equal weight on all European games played up to a maximum of 38, representing a the dredominant schedule length of the major leagues (execpt Germany). Now explaining the numbers above: in the last 38 games between Spanish clubs and English clubs Spain has gained 56.29 points and England 46.27. How the hell do get the fractions you will ask! Every time a game is played a 1/38th of the points is subtracted and the most recent result is added. As I write this the FC Barcelona- FC Liverpool game is on, wait I take a look, Barca is leading 1-0. If that`s the final score then the Spanish score would change to 56.29 minus1.48(that`s 1/38th of 56.29) plus 3 (for the win over Liverpool) = 57.81. The English points would be 46.57 minus 1.23 plus 0 =45.34. Points per game in domestic league average will also change Barcelona has 2.13, Liverpool 2.01. These are factored in by 1/38th too. Spain rises to 1.670 and England to 1.925. Points gained and Points per game in domestic league are out in relation to each other to produce a coefficient that tells us by how much the Spanish league is superior to the English league. this is done for the five major leagues in Europe (Spain, England, Italy, Germany, France) agsinst each other. The choice of these leauges is based on the number of games played in European competitions. As it turned out they also happened to be the five best, tough recently the 6th best Portugal has begun to narrow the gap to Germany.
My view is that there are 5 major leagues: England, France, Italy, Spain, Germany...and then Porto, Celtic, and PSV as teams that are at these leagues quality. Just look at the CL 16 and you'll see every team fits this criteria almost every year. The lower leagues seem to act as feeder leagues to these five leagues, as do these leagues reserve teams. Big Five(+PSV,Porto,Celtic) Feeder leagues, reserves I'm sure people will disagree it's just how I generally look at it.
Highbury, a very accurate assessment indeed. Here are The Virtual European Football League Top Twenty: Manchester United FC Barcelona Inter Milan Chelsea FC Sevilla Olympique Lyon Real Madrid FC Valencia Celtic FC Liverpool Porto As Rom Arsenal Schalke 04 AC Milan Atletico Madrid PSV Eindhoven Werdr Bremen Sporting L Benfica L Here are the current league ratings : Spain 3 England 2.67 France 2.52 Italy 2.48 Germany 2.37 Portugal 2.17 Scotland 2.12 Holland 1.93 Switzerland 1.79 Turkey 1.79 The numerical value is the adjusted points gained by a win in the respective league. With this value you can compare all the clubs to each other.
you have the fifa club world cup and the former intercontinental cup. and concacaf teams in south american championships.
ok what the hell? how is celtic, sevilla, roma and prto betetr the bayern muncih? mayeb this year, but overall no way. i hate bayern by the way but iit dosent make sense and how does france have more points then germany when france only has one team ranked lol?
European16, my ranking reflects the most current 34 or 38 games(depending on league size), no honorary points for past achievements here.....
i think it would be very difficult to create a complete rankings system that has no biased elements...i do applaud your efforts and honestly urs seem alot better then some of the "established" team ranking such as FSC and heck the FIFA Coca-Cola Rankings, even tho they are national teams...
according to the UEFA coefficents: 1. SPAIN- 70.831 2. ENGLAND- 64.165 3. ITALY- 63.517 4. FRANCE- 53.156 5. PORTUGAL- 42.082 6. GERMANY- 42.078 7. ROMANIA- 40.165 8. HOLLAND- 38.522 9. RUSSIA- 36.125 10. SCOTLAND- 30.250 these ranking are calculated based on the performance of the clubs of each country and how they do in the UEFA Cup and the UEFA CHampions League. THe Intertoto Cup and Supercups have no bearing on this ranking. These are the numbers used by UEFA when judgin how many team from each country enter into european compititions. They also show ranking for each club, by year as well as over the last 5 years. This is the 5 year country ranking, but there is also a current year ranking. here is the link to the website: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/crank2007.html
I don't see how you can include Celtic in the top 16 teams. The scottish league is so uncompetitive it's a joke. Also this is the first time they have even qualified for the second round. I'd put them on a par with Rosenburg.
Once again, the ranking is based on recent performance. Since Celtic is running away with their league and could be a goal away from the Champions League, that should be more than enough reason to count them in. Not to mention they are in the Last 16 right now.
if you check my second post on the first page u get a complete 5 year ranking...it of course does not include domestic play...which in countries like Scotland and Russia, where there are really only 1 or 2 good teams (Celtic, Rangers,CSKA) can have a large benefit to the rankings
erictheking, Here are the points Scottish teams gained in European compititions versus the Big Five inthe last 5 plus years. Scotland 12 France 12 (10 games) Scotland 9 Italy 12 (8 games) Scotland 14 Spain 17 (12 games) Scotland 13 England 10 (8 games) Scotland 14 Germany 23 (13 games) So overall Scottish clubs did quite good. The second best Scottish club in my ranking are around the 45th place next to Reading. Heart of Midleothian and Aberdeen are somewhere in the 70s. Trondheim, for that matter, is slightly ahead of Charlton in the 160s and would be in 8th or 9th place in the Scottish league.
There's plenty to LOL @ in that ranking, but my favorite: Newcastle is above Chelsea and Manchester United.
I kind of like this one: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/fink_tank# Top ten: 1. Barcelona 2. Chelsea 3. Lyon 4. Manchester United 5. Arsenal 6. Liverpool 7. Sevilla 8. Real Madrid 9. Valencia 10. Porto The top is a bit English-heavy, but the rest of the league is rated well below: Spurs 26th, Blackburn 35th, Reading 43rd, etc. I think this is a fair statement on the level of balance within the Premiership. Top teams from other leagues: Inter and Milan are 11th & 12th, Werder and Schalke are 16th & 17th, PSV 18th, Celtic 37th, CSKA Moscow 38th.
Hmmm.. The past four seasons 8 Scottish clubs have participated in the EC and only Celtic and Rangers have managed to get any kind of results against clubs from the top 4 leagues.. Infact 4 of the 8 Scottish teams have been eliminated straight away by teams from Finland, Iceland, Ireland and Ukraine, while Hearts have produced some rather average results at best. No doubt Celtic and Rangers have proven their worth in Europe, but the rest of the Scottish league is not even of average European standard if you look at the results in Europe the past 4 years... Especially if we also look at the very poor Scottish results in the UEFA Intertoto tournament. .
Ceres, The league rating in one of my privious posts is always an average rating. and in the case of Scotland it is heavily skewes by uter domination of Celtic. My primary goal is to make the results of the various domestic league comparable to each other. So for every league a coeffiecient is calculated and then multiplied by the point total that club has gained. Here is a virtual British League (no Welsh or Northern Ireland clubs here) First Division Manchester United Chelsea Celtic FC Liverpool Arsenal Bolton Wand Reading Glasgow Rangers FC Everton Tottenham Blackburn Newcastle Portsmouth Heart of Midleothian FC Aberdeen FC Middlesborough Fulham Aston Villa Hibernian Edinburgh Manchester City 2nd Division Derby County Birmingham City Wigan Sheffield Un FC Kilmarnock West Bromwich Albion FC Motherwell FC Sunderland Wolverhampton FC Southampton Preston Cardiff City Inverness Charlton Athletic West Ham Stoke City Colchester Dundee United Plymouth Crystal Palace 3rd Division among others Watford Note the overlapping of the English first division and second division clubs. That is typical of all countries: The top second division clubs are better than the bottom first division clubs. I`m currently compiling data for more precise numbers on this relation.
Well, you do mention that Aberdeen are somewhere in the 70s in your ranking and that Trondheim (I guess that you mean Rosenborg BK) are in the 160s and would be in 8th or 9th place in the Scottish league. However, by the look of how teams like Hibernian and Dundee United have performed in Europe the past few years, then I'm quite sure that a team like Rosenborg easily would be the 3rd best team in the Scottish league and that a team like Hibernian would struggle at the bottom half of both the Norwegian and Danish league.. .
Ceres, I looked up the exact numbers concerning Rosendorg Trondheim, they`re between Motherwell and Inverness in the Scottish league and close to Charlton in the English League, that would put them in lower third of a fictious British 2nd Division in my earlier post. Remember I look at the last 38 games in the English league or the last26 games in the Norwegian league only.You mentioned European results, I look upon them as something like AN FA Cup compitition, where the lucky draw or the lucky breaks in a couple of games can take you a long way. For an objective assessment of strength sample size is the key. I wouldn`t bet that I have assesses the correct strength of , say, the Estonian league, But I`m confident that I`m very, very close on the Big Five and only a little less confident regarding leagues as Norway or Scotland. To back this up : Norwegian clubs 21 points versus Big Five clubs 93 points in 42 matches in the last 5 plus years.
Well, I base my evaluation of the Scottish league on actually being able to watch Scottish, Norwegian and danish league games on a regular baisis and on evaluations made by Danish experts and foreign players who have played in both the Scottish and Danish league the past years... As for me specifically mentioning Hibernian, then it is because they usually are among the top half teams in the Scottish league but still have produced very poor results in Europe the past few years and because I watched them play twice against Danish OB Odense in this seasons UEFA Intertoto cup final. Based on their Intertoto performance they would surely struggle at the bottom half of the Danish league... Not surprisingly so when you also look at the quality of play in the average scottish league games and the fact that the more average danish teams normally manage to progress from the first qualifying rounds of the Europa cups, while the more average Scottish team usually get eliminated straight away. .