30 Best Football Teams in the World Ranked [Ranked]

What makes a team the best in the world? It’s a rather subjective question. Sure, the amount of wins and trophies a club has won in recent times can be a good indicator, but in a sport where anyone could beat anyone, it feels like a tough ask to pick just one team that trumps the rest. After all, comparing teams from different leagues requires pure guesswork.

As an example, Manchester United have never locked horns with Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr. And while many may think the former would easily come out on top, it’s practically impossible to know full well. Admittedly, it’s subjective and there is technically no right or wrong answer – but everyone could use some help from the folks over at Opta, who have calculated – and recently updated – their Power Rankings.

Using an Elo algorithm which analyses results from over 2.5 million games, a rating is then assigned to that team which is comparable to other sides across the world. Points are determined by in-league ratings, the overall rating of a division, a country’s rating among others and the rating of the continent a team plays in. With all that in mind, here are the 30 best teams in world football as things stand, how well they’ve performed in European competitions in seasons gone by and exactly why they are placed where they are.

World’s Best Teams: 30th-21st

Manchester United and AC Milan scrape in

Making the top 30 by the skin of their teeth are Lazio and Roma. The two Italian clubs have the same score of 88.4 and just ahead of them by 0.01 points is Manchester United. After a disappointing campaign last year, the Red Devils decided to keep Erik ten Hag around and will be hoping the gamble pays off.

Incredibly, Slavia Praha are ranked ahead of the Red Devils in 27th. Despite finishing as runners-up in the Czech First League last season, they’ve started strongly this time around and have a score of 88.6. AC Milan, in 26th, had to watch on as their local rivals held another league title aloft after a dominant season in Italy. In fact, they gifted Inter Milan domestic gold following a 2-1 defeat to the Nerazzurri.

Athletic Club won the Copa del Rey last season – for the 24th time in their storied history – and finished fifth in the La Liga standings, eight points behind the Champions League spots. While Europa League football would be far from a failure, the allure of being among Europe’s elite is bound to drive them on in the coming seasons. They are tied on the same score (89.0) with Benfica and Villarreal.

They are followed by an AS Monaco team who, unsurprisingly, finished in second place behind Paris Saint-Germain in Ligue 1 last season. This time out, they will be hoping to take their domestic rivals to the wire and potentially even shock the French top division.

PSV, under Peter Bosz’s stewardship, made the Eredivisie look like a cakewalk in 2023/24 and held an unassailable nine-point lead with two games to go last season. With a 100% record to start the new season, they look primed to repeat the feat and are 21st in Opta’s rankings as a result.

World’s Best Teams: 20th-11st

Chelsea and Juventus feature

Into the top 20 we go, and these spots start with a couple of English teams in Newcastle United and Chelsea. Eddie Howe’s men had a disappointing season during 2023/24, falling out of the Champions League places and even being eliminated from the European competition in the group stages. This time around, though, they’re enjoying their strongest start to a top flight season in over two decades. Under Enzo Maresca, Chelsea also look to finally be heading in the right direction and their place in 19th is a reflection of that.

La Liga’s resident underdogs, Girona, were the talk of the town in Spain last year for their journey into the Champions League places and although their title charge ran out of steam around February, the fact they have secured Tuesday and Wednesday night football is remarkable in itself – and they are only bound to improve as the seasons go by. As a result, they’re 18th.

To the surprise of many, Stuttgart are sitting in 17th. The German team shocked everyone by finishing second in the league last season. They haven’t started quite as impressively this time out. Just missing out on a spot in the top 15 is Porto, who also had to settle for third place last season in the league, finishing below Sporting CP and Benfica. They’ve started the current campaign strongly, though, and will be hoping to put up a much stronger fight this time around.

Juventus – with a rating of 91.5, sitting in 15th – may count themselves unlucky not to make the top 10, though their status in the European football echo chamber does let them down. Gone are the days when the Old Lady were one of the best clubs on the continent and the far superior team in their nation.

Just ahead of their Serie A rivals is Atalanta. The Bergamo-based side are 14th and, led by Ademola Lookman, won the Europa League last season. Having flirted with competing at the top of the Italian first division for several years now, they’ve earned their spot here. Atletico Madrid are ranked 13th, with Diego Simeone’s men looking to build off a strong summer in which they added the likes of Conor Gallagher and Julian Alvarez to their ranks.

Losing out on the Bundesliga title to Bayern Munich on the final day of the 2022/23 season was a real sickener for Borussia Dortmund, but that didn’t stop them from reaching the Champions League final one year later after some brilliant performances against Atletico Madrid and PSG in the knock-out stages. Despite that, there are three other German sides ranked above them, including the team in 11th which is RB Leipzig.

World’s Best Teams: 10th-1st

Manchester City, PSG and Bayer Leverkusen rank high

The top 10 are made up of the creme de la creme of world football, though every team here – unsurprisingly – resides in Europe. Kicking off the top 10 is a very impressive Sporting CP side, who secured 10th spot as the highest rated Portuguese team. Under the sought-after Ruben Amorim, the side dominated the Primeira Liga last year and have picked up right where they left off this time around.

A defeated Champions League semi-finalist, Bayern Munich, have a rating of 94.0 and have dropped a few places, after their dominant decade-long run in the Bundesliga came to an end. Harry Kane’s side failed to meet the expectations many have come to expect of the Bavarians as they lost out on the league title, but this season, they’ve come back with furious vengeance and look like the team to beat.

Paris Saint-Germain may have lost Kylian Mbappe to Real Madrid, but they are still eighth in terms of their ranking (94.3), in front of the likes of Bayern. The Ligue 1 juggernauts secured a domestic treble with a 2-1 win over Lyon in the French Cup final at the end of last season – but that’s become commonplace nowadays for the capital club. With four wins out of four to start the new Ligue 1 campaign, it doesn’t look like losing Mbappe will do much to hurt their chances domestically.

They are just behind a Liverpool team that failed to provide the fairytale ending for Jurgen Klopp last season, winning just the League Cup. The arrival of Arne Slot has started well, though, and it looks like the Reds have replaced one very talented manager with another.

In sixth comes arguably the most in-form team on the planet last season. In fact, it’s not arguable – they lost one game throughout the entirety of last term. What Xabi Alonso has done at Bayer Leverkusen is beyond explanation. Their last gasp 2-2 draw against Roma in the Europa League gave them the longest European unbeaten run of all-time, but they stumbled at the last hurdle to secure a historic treble.

An extremely impressive start to the current campaign for Barcelona has the Catalan giants in fifth place. Lamine Yamal is looking almost destined to become the best player in the world one day. They are followed by an Arsenal side, who – once again – failed to knock Manchester City off their perch. Having come so close to Premier League success two campaigns on the bounce, Mikel Arteta and his well-drilled entourage will be hoping to end the Gunners’ 20-year league title drought when the season ends.

Inter Milan surprised everyone by reaching the Champions League final in 2022/23 and finished last season, largely thanks to one of Europe’s top performers this season, Lautaro Martinez, as champions of Italy for the 30th time in their history. It was one of the most dominant league campaigns the Serie A has ever seen, which is saying something.

The star-studded nature of Carlo Ancelotti’s industrious Real Madrid side sees them nick position number two with a rating of 98.8 That is hardly a surprise, as Los Blancos came out of the back end of the Champions League campaign triumphant. All eyes were on superstar Ballon d’Or contender Jude Bellingham, who had been outstanding during his maiden term at the Santiago Bernabeu, and he certainly stepped up to the plate. With Mbappe now brought into the fold, Madrid could create one of the most impressive dynasties football has ever seen.

That leaves Manchester City to take the gold medal. Despite not retaining their status as Champions League winners, the fact that Pep Guardiola and Co won their fourth consecutive league title means the Cityzens are still given a perfect score of 100. Guardiola, for all his brilliance, has turned the Manchester-based outfit into an unstoppable force, one that enjoyed treble-winning success in 2022/23. The aforementioned success no doubt plays a massive factor in their current ranking, but to say last season was unsuccessful is a huge judgement of error.