Two wins send FC Barcelona into Top 3
The Catalans are now third, behind Atlético Madrid and Bayern München, in the European club ranking
Two more wins this week, the fifth and the sixth in a row, allowed FC Barcelona to recover a third place in the Eurofoot European club ranking, climbing a couple of spots and replacing Real Madrid in that Top 3 they were not a part of since the beginning of November. Late goals in both occasions first let the Catalans beat Granada CF, away from home, in a Cup quarter-finals tie (5-3), and then drove them to a win at Seville against Real Betis (3-2). FC Barcelona now has 20.116 rating points, still 1.421 behind La Liga leaders Atlético Madrid, who are second in the ranking, and almost 3.000 points away from Bayern München, who continues to lead the pack on 23.043 points.
Bayern did not collect any rating points from their 2-0 win against Egyptian side Al Ahly, in the FIFA World Club Cup, as the Africans are not rated and, thus, results against them can not be properly evaluated. The Bavarians, anyway, beat Hertha Berlin away from home (1-0), on Friday, in the Bundesliga, preserving the same rating they had and keeping the first place for the 24th week in a row. They now approach the 26 consecutive week leadership Liverpool FC enjoyed from January until June 2020. Oddly, two former leaders of the Eurofoot Club ranking are amongst the biggest losers of the week. Real Madrid did beat SD Huesca in the League (2-1), but lost the bonus points from last season’s Cup quarter-finals and that was enough to see them downgraded from third to fifth place, being overrun by both Barça and Sevilla FC. In England, Liverpool FC lost two home matches this week (0-1 against Brighton & Hove Albion and 1-4 against Manchester City) and left the Top 10 for the first time since the establishment of the ranking, in August 2019. The Reds are now 15th, with a mere 15.200 rating points.
Atlético Madrid lost a good chance of cutting the disadvantage towards Bayern by conceding a home draw to Celta Vigo (2-2) this Monday and also lost points from last season’s Cup - as they were out before the quarter-finals - but are still safe seconds, even if Sevilla FC increased their rating to 19.907 points with two wins: they started by beating Almeria CF (1-0) in the Cup and later won against Getafe CF (3-0) in the League. The Andalusians stepped over Real Madrid but were outplayed by FC Barcelona, thus keeping the fourth place.
Away wins against Burnley FC (2-0) and Liverpool FC (4-1) kept Manchester City a safe sixth, on 18.834, while Manchester United is seventh, on 17.377. The Red Devils were penalised by their 3-3 draw against Everton, even if they got everybody’s attention with the 9-0 midweek demolition of Southampton FC. Inter Milano also kept the eighth spot, as even if they were beaten by Juventus in the first leg of the Cup semi-finals (1-2), they beat Fiorentina (2-0) away from home in the League. Inter has 16.718 points and are a little more than 300 points over RB Leipzig, this week’s new addition to the Top10. The Germans enjoyed a good week: this 4-0 win against Bochum in the Cup did not get them rating points, as it was still from the 1/8 finals, but later they beat Schalke 04 3-0 in Gelsenkirschen and now have 16.374 rating points. Atalanta still closes the Top10, even if they did nothing but draw this week: a 0-0 away from home against SSC Napoli in the Cup semi-finals and a 3-3 at home to Torino in the Serie A saw them drop to 15.904 points, but still 27 over Milan, who is 11th.
French team Paris Saint-Germain, in 12th, is still the best team not belonging to the Big Four Leagues, while Portugal’s FC Porto, in 23rd, also kept the best position outside of the Big Five. The Portuguese champions start to be menaced by League leaders and League Cup winners Sporting, who are now 31st, one position better than last week, less than 1.200 points behind them. Remarkable, as the Lisbon Lions started the season with 3.500 points less that the Oporto Dragons.
The biggest climb of the week belonged to French team AS Saint-Etiènne, who went from 201st to 148th with a 1-1 draw against FC Nantes and a 1-0 win over FC Metz. Amongst the Top100, the most noticed upwards move was by Portuguese team Moreirense, who climbed 27 points, from 119th to 92nd, with a couple of away wins: 2-0 at FC Famalicão and 2-1 at Farense. On the other way, French team Nîmes Olympique dropped 94 spots, from 216th to 310th, after losing to Paris Saint-Germain (0-3) and AS Monaco (3-4).
Here you have the complete list:
