The ten greatest soccer clubs of all time, ranked by historical success and continued relevance across generations.
- Real Madrid (1902)- La Liga, Spain
Hardware: 33 La Liga titles, 13 Champions League titles, 19 Copa del Rey Cups, 3 UEFA Super Cups, 2 UEFA Cups, and 3 Intercontinental Cups.
Current UEFA Coefficient Ranking: 2
Greatest Players: Alfredo Di Stéfano, Ferenc Puskás, Zinedine Zidane, Cristiano Ronaldo, Raymond Kopa, Luís Figo, Emilio Butragueño, Amancio, Francisco Gento, Iker Casillas, Fernando Redondo, José Santamaría - Bayern Munich (1900)- Bundesliga, Germany
Hardware: 30 Bundesliga Championships, 6 Champions League titles, 1 UEFA Cup, and 2 Intercontinental Cups.
Current UEFA Coefficient Ranking: 1
Greatest Players: Franz Beckenbauer, Lothar Matthäus, Gerd Müller, Paul Breitner, Sepp Maier, Uli Hoeneß, Mehmet Scholl, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge - AC Milan-(1899)- Serie A, Italy
Hardware: 18 Serie A titles, 7 Champions League titles, 3 Intercontinental cups, 1 FIFA Club World Cup, 5 Coppa Italias, 5 UEFA Super Cups.
Current UEFA Coefficient Ranking: 4
Greatest players: Marco van Basten, Franco Baresi, Kaká, Gianni Rivera, Ruud Gullit, Paolo Maldini, Juan Alberto Schiaffino, Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, Marcel Desailly, Nils Liedholm, Frank Rijkaard, Rui Costa, Cafu, Gennaro Gattuso - FC Barcelona-(1899)- La Liga, Spain
Hardware: 26 La Liga titles, 5 Champions League titles, 30 Copa del Rey Cups, 5 UEFA Super Cups, 2 FIFA Club World Cups.
Current UEFA Coefficient Ranking: 3
Greatest Players: Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi, Xavi, Hristo Stoichkov, Andrés Iniesta, Luís Figo, Michael Laudrup, Samuel Eto’o, László Kubala, Ronald Koeman - Juventus (1897)- Serie A, Italy
Hardware: 31 Serie A titles, 2 Champions League Cups, 2 UEFA Super Cups, 3 UEFA Cups, 2 Intercontinental Cups, 9 Coppa Italias.
Current UEFA Coefficient Ranking: 5
Greatest Players: Gianluigi Buffon, Gaetano Scirea, Roberto Baggio, Michel Platini, Dino Zoff, Paolo Rossi, Alessandro Del Piero, Zinedine Zidane, Omar Sívori, Luis Monti, John Charles - Manchester United (1878)- Premier League, England
Hardware: 20 First Division/Premier League Titles, 3 Champions League titles, 11 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, 1 UEFA Super Cup, 1 Intercontinental Cup, and 1 FIFA Club World Cup.
Current UEFA Coefficient Ranking: 9
Greatest Players: George Best, Bobby Charlton, Peter Schmeichel, Roy Keane, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Eric Cantona, Nemanja Vidić, Ryan Giggs, Wayne Rooney, Paul Scholes, Denis Law - Liverpool (1892)- Premier League, England
Hardware: 18 Premier League titles, 6 Champions League titles, 7 FA Cups, 7 League Cups, 3 UEFA Super Cups and 3 UEFA Cups.
Current UEFA Coefficient Ranking: 10
Greatest Players: Kenny Dalglish, Kevin Keegan, Steven Garrard, Jamie Carragher, Ian Rush, Phil Neal, Ray Clemence - Inter (1908)- Serie A, Italy
Hardware: 18 Serie A Championships, 3 Champions League titles, 3 UEFA Cups, 2 Intercontinental Cups and 7 Coppa Italias.
Current UEFA Coefficient Ranking: 33
Greatest Players: Guiseppe Meazza, Giacinto Facchetti, Tarcisio Burgnich, Sandro Mazzola, Luis Suárez Miramontes, Armando Picchi, Javier Zanetti - Ajax (1900)- Eredivisie, Netherlands
Hardware: 33 Eredivisie Championships, 4 Champions League titles, 18 Dutch Cups, 2 Intercontinental Cups, 2 UEFA Super Cups and 1 UEFA Cup.
Current UEFA Coefficient Ranking: 21
Greatest Players: Johan Cruyff, Dennis Bergcamp, Johan Neeskans, Johnny Rep, Velibor Vasović, Frank Rijkaard, Arie Haan - Chelsea (1905)- Premier League, England
Hardware: 5 First Division/Premier League Titles, 1 Champions League title, 1 UEFA Cup, 1 UEFA Super Cup, 7 FA Cups, and 4 League Cups.
Current UEFA Coefficient Ranking: 16
Greatest Players: Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba
Honorable Mentions: FC Porto (Portugal), Club Atlético River Plate (Argentina), Arsenal (England), Porto (Portugal), Boca Juniors (Argentina), Paris Saint Germain (France), Rangers (Scotland), São Paulo (Brazil), Roma (Italy), Valencia (Spain), Parma (Italy), Benefica (Portugal), Celtic (Scotland)
How Juventus can be on second position in this list with only 2 Champions-League titles????? Look at other clubs behind them in this list, how often they won this competition, which is by far the toughest tournament for clubs to win in Europe, or to be true, in the world, when it comes to soccer. This list is total nonsense. Okay, Juve won the Italian Serie-A League 31 times, but this can not count nearly as much, as winning a trophy like the Champions League, in which the best teams from ALL over Europe plays against each other. Crazy, Juve infront of Bayern, Barca and AC Milan. What a joke.
What’s also not fair is, that when you look at Bayern in the list, they have not named alot of their titles here in the list, while, for example when it comes to Real Madrid, all their titles are named in the list. Strange.
Fact is, the following is missing in Bayerns list here – Bayern also won 2 times the FIFA Club World Cup, they also won 2 times the UEFA Super-Cup, they won 20 times the DFB-Pokal (Real’s Copa del Rey titles are all mentioned, for example) and they also won 9 times the DFL Super-Cup.
But not only Bayern is affected here. I also miss some of the titles of some other teams in the list.
Either all titles from all teams in the list should be mentioned, or no titles at all from all the teams. But mentioning all from some teams and from others not, is not okay and not fair in my eyes.
My list (definitely the best list)
1. Real Madrid
2. Milan
3. Boca Juniors
4. Bayern Munich
5. Barcelona
6. Liverpool
7. Peñarol
8. River
9. Independiente
10. Manchester United
Boca Juniors don’t belong in that list. European clubs are much better. Since 2 decades now, south-american club-teams have no chance, they would not even survive group-stage in Champions-League. See the reality.
Overwhelmed by the tremendous amount of data that support this statement.
Are you kidding us ALEX, or what? In the past 10 years, european teams have won the FIFA Club World Cup eight times in a row. Since 2013 only european teams won, it’s not even a real competition for these teams to win this cup. The southamerican team, that took part, often did not even make it to the final and lost to opponents from Asia or Central America, can you imagine? *lol*
There you have the datas you need, but next time you inform yourself, everything is easy to find on the Internet. Southamerican clubs were good in the past, now they are only average teams, that have no chance against best european teams. On the other hand – without russian oligarches and oil-sheikhs, crappy clubs like ManCity, PSG or Chelsea would also be just average teams, that would not even qualify for CL League. This is, why i have zero respect for these three mentioned clubs, they sold their soul, by taking money from the middle east. Ugh, disgusting! Plastic sh.. clubs.
Your right. 1st Is Real and second Barca, then Bayern and after that Milan, 4th is in my eyes Inter and 5th Manu
No, Barca is only mediocre team now without Messi. It’s a team that belongs into EuroLeague and not into ChampionsLeague anymore. But even with Messi, they get some big big defeats from Bayern Munich with alot of goals. This shows that even with Messi and some other good Barca players in the team, they were weaker than Bayern. Therefore Bayern belongs on second place, for sure.
And we can also talk about first place. Okay, Real has biggest history of all clubs. But let’s be really honest, when Real Madrid would not be Real UEFAdrid, then they would have at least four CL titles less. When CL-games were tight, they were always preferred by the referee, you can see that in a number of close CL games. And since the thing with the Video-Assistant-Refereere exists, Real haven’t won anything. That says alot in my eyes. But okay, because of biggest past, can you cope it, when they are in position one, but only because of their big history in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, not of the three CL-titles in a row (2015/2016/2017), which they only won because of some strange referee-decisions. And i am not a Real hater, i just tell what happened in reality here, cause i saw all these close games.
My list would be:
(1) Real Madrid
(2) Bayern Munich
(3) AC Milan
(4) FC Barcelona
(5) FC Liverpool
(6) Ajax Amsterdam
(7) Manchester United
(8) Juventus Turin
(9) Inter Milan
(10) FC Porto
Sounds alot more realistic for me. Next teams would be
(11) Benfica
(12) Chelsea
Chelsea can NEVER be inside the Top Ten. Porto or Benfica have won much more than Chelsea. And the one title, Chelsea had won in the CL, the were totally lucky against a much better Bayern Munich. That Bayern lost that game was a joke, normally it must have been their seventh CL title.
(1) Real Madrid
(2) Barcelona
(3) Bayern Munich
(4) AC Milan
(5) Manchester United
(6) Ajax Amsterdam
(7) Liverpool
(8) Juventus
(9) Inter Milan
(10) FC Porto
This sounds a lot more realistic to me. Next teams would be
(11) Benfica
(12) Arsenal
I would probably put Chelsea at 13 but NEVER in the top 10’s
FAXXX
what a joke.
My list
FC Barcelona
Real VARdrid (without cheating can’t win even half of what they have)
Bayern Munich
AC milan
Liverpool
Manchester United
Ajax Amsterdam
Juventus
Inter Milan
Tie between benfica chelsea and arsenal
Hahaha. Varcelona fan talking about refery. Lol) You forget Barcelona – Chelsea ?
Hhhhhh Barcelona has 5 ucls so poor and I really want to see you playing next year without messi hhhh barca will be a dead Team by 2026 and remember and how Tf barca is the best club like wtfff barca 4 th
Like, the list is meant to be
1 R Madrid
2.B Muchën
3 AC Milan
4 Barcelona
5 M United
6 Liverpool
7 Juventus
8 Ajax
9 I Milan
10 Benfica
11 Arsenal
12 Porto
13 PSG
Maybe Chelsea 14
STILL CRYING. YOUR REFREELONA IS NOT IN TOP 3 ALL TIME BEST .MADRID IS 1ST ON ALL TIME IST.CRY MORE HATERS
@Fatin Noor, what you writing about? Why not telling the truth my friend? REAL UEFADRID is the club, that bought alot referees in last years, not Barca or any other club!!!
Everybody knows this, look at the Reals CL half-finals against Juve and especially against Bayern and also at the final against Liverpool. In all games your Real Uefadrid was totally favoured by the referee. So many strange decisions and ALL in favour of Real. What a cheat, unbelievable! Only possible if you buy the referee.
Normally Real would have at most 8 or 9 CL titles instead of 13 and since the VAR was introduced in CL, they have not won anything either. Which is the next proof, that it’s true, that they used to buy referees before.
My list would be
1.real madrid
2.ac Milan
3.bayern Munich
4.liverpool
5.barcelona
6.manchester United
7.inter Milan
8.juventus
9.ajax
10.roma
11.chelsea
12.arsenal
Blaugrana you are clearly a Barca supporter and great jealous and envy off the amount tittle Real Madrid has won, any excuses is good to try to dismissed but the numbers are fact and Real Madrid top of the ranking is not under question by anyone other than you. I will question Barca initial position it I leave that with you.
I think it would be
1real madrid
2manchester united
3bayern munich
4 ajax or barcelona
5 ajax or barcelona
6 ac milan
7 liverpool
8 inter milan
9 juventus
10 porto or benfica
I think legacy also counts
Let me know your thoughts on this
Seriously?? Chelsea not even in the top 30…
Real, Bayern, Milan, Barca, Liverpool, Man U, Juve, Ajax, Inter, Arsenal
How bayern munich can be higher than Ajax and Barcelona blows my mind, the only world known players there OAT is beckenbauer, gerd muller and Matthäus. Barcelona didnt even have to mention Riquelme, henry, puyol, maradona, Rijkaard, Cruyff etc.
I dont know what you mean, it’s totally normal that Bayern is in front of Ajax and Barca here, because the list follows the reality and not some dreams of fans from a certain club. I think the CL is the strongest competition to win, so this gives a good comparison-possibility, that says a lot. Let’s look at the datas, here a good side with that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Cup_and_UEFA_Champions_League_finals
Bayern won the CL 6 times and 2 times they lost very unlucky, but were the much better team in the final. That was against Manchester united and against Chelsea. So they were close to have 8 CL titles. Also they were 5 times the runner-up, which means in total that they were in the CL final 11 times. Only Real was more often in the CL-final (16 times).
Now to the datas of Ajax Amsterdam. They won the CL title 4 times and they were 2 times runner-up, which means 6 times they were in the final of the CL, not even half as often as Bayern Munich.
Then the datas of Barcelona. They won the CL title 5 times and they were 3 times the runner-up, which means 8 times they reached the final of the CL. Also nowhere near as often as Bayern Munich.
Also Bayern had alot more top-players that you mentioned, were is Breitner, Rummenigge, Kahn, Klose for example? Or the generation of Lahm, Schweinsteiger and so on, they also won the World-Cup, so they are also top-players.
And then there is one very important point more, that speaks for Bayern here and this is – they do not belong to any sheikh, any oligarch or any state or oil-state, that pumps money into them constantly. If the financial fairplay was really respected and controlled (at the moment it’s not worth the paper it’s written on), then Bayern and ManUnited would suddenly be the two richest clubs in the world by far and they would have won the CL 20 times already so far. The only reason, that permanently prevents this, is the huge scam that some clubs are constantly supplied with billions of money by billionaires in the background, while this is not the case with other clubs. Bayern has sponsors too of course, but it’s not the same, they don’t pump billions into the club without something in return.
So, if you take all that things into account, it’s a miracle that Bayern has won the CL 6 times and only two clubs are more often. Therefore Bayern of course deserved to be named in front of Barca and Ajax in this list and therefore also clubs like ManCity, Chelsea and PSG should not even be in that list here (and they almost aren’t, which makes me happy). These plastic-clubs would be nothing without their, if they had to finance themselves, they would be mediocre clubs, that would not even reach the CL. Maybe hard tohear for their fans, but this is reality.
Bayern destroyed Barca often in last years, for example yesterday again in CL League. Also Barca won nothing before in their past, before they had Lionel Messi, while Bayern won alot also in the 70’s for example.
In other words, Barca’s history and successes are linked to only one player (Messi) in combination with a few others of his generation (but look at Barca now without Messi, they are finished), while Bayern has had many good generations of players over the last five decades.
That’s why Barca can never be ahead of Bayern in this list. A fact that is.
My list would be
1.Real madrid
2.Milan
3.Liverpool
4.Bayern
5.Barcelona
6.Manchester United
7.Juventus
8.Ajax
9.Inter
10 Arsenal
Here is my list:
(1) Real Madrid (but i also have some doubts if everything were fair with all their wins. strange referee decisions, always in favour of Real really happened, i saw all the games in last years. but anyway, 13 CL-titles set them on first place)
(2) Bayern München
(3) AC Milano (if this club hadn’t gone so downhill in the last 15 years, this club would be number 2 in my book. but now it’s Bayern)
(4) FC Barcelona
(5) Manchester United
(6) FC Liverpool
(7) Ajax Amsterdam
(8) FC Porto
(9) Inter Milano
(10) Juventus Turin
1 Real Madrid
2 Milan
3 Boca Juniors
4 Bayern Munich
5 Barcelona
6 Liverpool
7 Manchester United
8 Juventus
9 Inter
10 Ajax
What? Boca Juniors in front of Bayern, Barca, Liverpool, Manu, Juve, Ajax and Inter? Okay, maybe Boca had a good past and they also won the intercontinental cup three times in the past, but in the last two decades the south-american clubs have no chance anymore, against the best teams of europe. Only european teams win the trophy now. Question now is, how much counts the great past of clubs like Boca Juniors when they now only a mediocre team that would have no chance anymore against best european teams? If the past count that much, then it can also be said that Penarol (Uruguay), National (Uruguay) or Independiente (Argentina) belongs into the list.
But i think, only teams belong to this list, which have a great past and a great present and then you can not name any south-american team. These clubs would still be great, if they could keep all the good players they have produced. But the problem is, that all the players (no matter from where they are in the world), are money-hungry and that’s why they all go to Europe. Now only european teams dominate football.
ARSENAL IS AT LEAST TOP 8 MFS
Hahahahaah, i hope that’s a joke? They have ZERO, i repeat ZERO, titles in Champions-League. And then they should be Top 8. *lol* 🙂
Hello! Guys Barcelona won most cups in Europe, so it is normal for it to be 4th place(95 cups winner)
What most cups? Barca has 5 CL Titles. Liverpool and Bayern have 6 CL Titles, AC Milan has 7 Titles and Real 13 (but you must substract 4 of them, because of referee-buying, which means that Real has 9 CL Titles.
So, where Barca hast most titles? What what, where where? So you see, that’s not true, what you had written here, Mamadou.
The real list has just arrived. It’s this one here:
(1) Real Madrid
(2) Bayern Muenchen
(3) AC Milan
(4) FC Barcelona
(5) Manchester United
(6) Liverpool
(7) Ajax Amsterdam
(8) Inter Milano
(9) Porto
(10) Juventus Turin
Thank god that you know me, because here is the final list now! 🙂
Yours, Nicoletta
1. Real
2. Bayern
3. Barca
4. Milan
5. Liverpool
6. Ajax
7. Juve
8. Manch.United
9. Inter
10. Benfice
Reality is this (even when hard to hear for alot of people)
If there would exist no
– oil-sheiks
– russian or american oligarchs
– middle-east oil-countries
– government money support
that all pumps billions of money into certain clubs, only “Bayern Munich” and maybe “Ajax” would win all trophys.
All other clubs here on this side, would be average middle-class teams with no chance to win anything. Face this fact guys!!!
So now im puting the last list.. the best teams of all time are
1 Real Madrid
2 AC Milan
3 Barcelona
4 Bayern Munich
5 Liverpool
6 Manchester United
7 SL Benfica
8 Inter Milano
9 Juventus
10 Ajax
11 FC Porto
And i must correct this list, because Barca can never be infront of Bayern and Manchester United. They only were world-class in around one decade, because of Messi, Iniesta and Xavi. Now, after these named players, Barca is, what it was all the decades before, a mediocre team. Or how often Bayern should destroy them in CL league? Were four total demolitions still not enough for Barca supporters, to wake up from dreamland and face the facts?