WCR Top 25 - February 21, 2023
I used to have a website in which I ranked the Top 25 clubs in international football every week. I went into detail about the games and how to find them on television and all kinds of other things. That was decade ago. It's a whole new world, mi amigos. I used to spend 10 hours working through numbers every week for the rankings before writing about the rankings and the matches. Nowadays, there are people who do the number crunching a hell of a lot better than I can. That gives me more time to watch the matches and comment on those. Also, it is so much easier to watch the matches now because of online streaming services, so there's that. Anyway, I'm getting the band back together again and I thought I'd start by bringing you the Top 25, which was the key feature of my previous site.
In the old days, as I mentioned before, I would spend hours crunching my own numbers, because I wanted to be as objective as possible. In the past few years, I have found that Fivethirtyeight.com has been doing this much better than I can do. They are paying somebody who knows what they are doing to crunch the numbers, so I will use their rankings. I might have some disagreements, but the list seems pretty fair. For my first post, I wanted to do a ranking so I will use theirs. So . . .
1) Manchester City (Eng) - In the past week, City has finally passed Bayern into the tops spot. That probably has more to do with Bayern than it has to do with City. The compete dismantling of the Gunners midweek was a major statement. But, then again, so was City's draw with Nottingham Forest over the weekend.
2) Bayern Munich (Ger) - Bayern looked good enough against PSG in their Champions League matchup, but going down to ten men quickly to Monchengladbach has set up quite the clusterf&%k in the German Budnesliga for the moment.
3) Barcelona (Esp) - A friend of mine went to the Europa League match against Manchester United and almost saw United's first ever victory at the Camp Nou. Of course, the match ended up in draw, but what a great match!! Barcelona's victory over Cadiz Sunday night was much expected.
4) Real Madrid (Esp) - Real Madrid pulled off a few expected victories this week, beating Elche and Osasuna by a combined 6-0 score. Nice way to follow up another Club World Cup championship.
5) Arsenal (Eng) - The Gunners did not look good against City at midweek, and they looked pretty bad against Villa until extra time. I know this team picked up two points against City this week, but does it really look like a Premier League champions to you?
6) Napoli (Ita) - It will be interesting to see how this team does in the knockout rounds of the Chapions League because it is clearly the cream of Serie A this year.
7) Liverpool (Eng) - The Reds passed a huge test in their quest towards respectability with their victory over my beloved Magpies this weekend. Now, let's see how they do against Real Madrid in the Champions League.
8) RB Leipzig (Ger) - After falling to Union Berlin last week, Leipzig looked awesome in their match against a tough Wolfsburg club. Will the real RB Leipzig please stand up.
9) Paris St. Germain (Fra) - The Champions League knockout round loss to Bayern Munich was PSG's third loss in a row. PSG's 4-3 victory over Lilly was one of the best matches of the season. I don't know which PSG to put my fait in, but with Neymar looking injured again, maybe Ligue 1 is wide open.
10) Manchester United (Eng) - During the first half of the Premier League season, Haaland was a god. Now, Rashford is a god. I'm hoping he has raging diarrhea when United plays Newcastle on Sunday night and the Magpies can win their first ever League Cup.
11) Benfica (Por)
12) Brighton (Eng)
13) Chelsea (Eng)
14) Ajax (Ned)
15) Porto (Por)
16) Newcastle United (Eng)
17) Inter Milan (Ita)
18) Borussia Dortmund (Ger)
19) Tottenham (Eng)
20) Atletico Madrid (Esp)
21) Zenit St. Petersburg (Rus)
22) Lille (Fra)
23) RB Salzburg (Aut)
24) Marseille (Fra)
25) Celtic (Sco)