Final European Club Power Rankings for the 2017/18 Season
That's it, it's over. The 2017-18 European football season has drawn to an end, with Saturday's dramatic Champions League final becoming a fitting closing chapter.
Real Madrid are the kings of continent after winning the most prestigious trophy in club football, and you can be certain that has dramatically affected the last edition of our European Club Rankings of the campaign.
These rankings are a season-long measurement of clubs, tracking teams throughout 2017-18 and taking into account results from all competitions. Champions League performances are particularly important.
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Sides that won the most games and trophies naturally rank high—though as you'll no doubt puzzle out, some competitions are worth more than others in these stakes.
Given only two teams played last week, we have constructed a little season blurb for the other 18.
20. Arsenal (Stay)
Unai Emery is the new manager of Arsenal. A prestigious and enticing job it may be, but there's a lot of uncomfortable work to get on with in the early stages.
It's a thin-looking squad, the budget is limited to £70 million, per the Telegraph, and there are so many things in need of repair: league position, mentality, squad balance, away form—the list is a long one.
19. Lazio (Stay)
It feels unlikely Lazio will produce as strong an effort next season as they did this term. Stefan de Vrij is already gone, per Algemeen Dagblad (h/t Football Oranje), while the pursuit of Sergej Milinkovic-Savic is under way, per the Guardian.
How can Simone Inzaghi expect to keep up with Serie A heavyweights under circumstances such as this?
18. Monaco (Stay)
Judging by their own lofty standards, Monaco might just be in for a summer of relative tranquility. And by that, we mean they might only lose two or three players, rather than five or six.
Finishing second in Ligue 1 ensured they have Champions League football to offer any new recruits they might require, and Leonardo Jardim is staying on as manager too, per L'Equipe (h/t Football.London).
17. Marseille (Stay)
There are times when it can be difficult to separate the success from failure in a season. Marseille fans will be struggling with that now.
They accrued 77 points in Ligue 1 and reached the Europa League final. Unfortunately, that's good for zero trophies and didn't qualify them for the Champions League.
How you view L'OM's campaign might just depend on whether you're a glass-half-full person or a glass-half-empty one.
16. Inter Milan (Stay)
Inter Milan fans were put through the whole range of emotions this season. For a patch, they looked genuinely unbeatable; another patch, totally listless. They ended up having to beat Lazio on the final day to secure fourth place.
What's important is they did so. In this case, the journey really doesn't matter—only the end result does. They are already moving fast in the market to improve, sensing a clear opportunity to usurp Napoli as Juventus' rival for the Scudetto.
15. Schalke 04 (Stay)
Schalke 04 have wasted no time in adding quality to their squad since finishing second, signing Mark Uth, Suat Serdar and Salif Sane for an approximate £16 million, per Transfermarkt.
The problem is they are balancing those against outgoings, and two crucial midfielders—Leon Goretzka and Max Meyer—have played their last games for the club. Manager Domenico Tedesco is trying to prepare for a multi-fronted campaign, yet he's lost two of his best men.
14. Valencia (Stay)
If all Valencia manage this summer is to simply tie down the loanees who performed so well for them in 2017-18, that might just count as a job well done. They have made a good start on that, securing Geoffrey Kondogbia permanently.
They will struggle to put the same three- or four-game win streaks together next season as continental football stretches them, but it's the sort of complication a manager welcomes, rather than spurns.
13. Chelsea (Stay)
In what is expected to be Antonio Conte's final act as Chelsea manager, he won the FA Cup, restoring some pride to a season that fractured and buckled too many times in the last 10 months.
They are the only top-level English team other than Manchester City to have won a trophy this season, but you can bet they would trade their FA Cup for a top-four berth without too much hesitation.
12. Tottenham Hotspur (Stay)
With Mauricio Pochettino signing a new deal and intimating the chairman will fully back him this summer, optimism is again high among Tottenham Hotspur fans.
To close the gap between themselves and the others, the club must acquire top-quality players who can improve their XI. If the window yields a set akin to Lucas Moura and Serge Aurier—players who represent projects, not plug-and-play assets—little progress will be made.
11. Manchester United (Stay)
Despite finishing second in the Premier League, 2017-18 will go down as a disappointment for Manchester United.
Finishing nowhere near that Manchester City side is no embarrassment—they were far and away the best in the division—but what hurt was the way they were eliminated from cups. The FA Cup final performance was disastrous, and the way they lost to Sevilla in the Champions League will haunt fans for a good while yet.
10. Napoli (Stay)
Ninety-one points doesn't get you a title? Football can be so, so cruel at times.
Sadly for the Partenopei, this is the end of a mini-era. Maurizio Sarri has already been replaced (despite not quite leaving yet) by Carlo Ancelotti, and several first-team players are expected to leave.
9. Paris Saint-Germain (Stay)
Technically, PSG won four pieces of silverware this season, but little kudos is awarded to them for doing so as they were all domestic honours.
Winning domestic competitions in France doesn't do the business in these rankings, and PSG's only opportunity to show how truly strong they are—the Champions League—was blown in the round of 16.
Thomas Tuchel must now attempt what Ancelotti, Laurent Blanc and Emery before him could not: bring this big-spending club glory on the European stage, and with it the respect that follows.
8. AS Roma (Stay)
Given the financial fair play constraints AS Roma faced last summer, a third-placed finish in Serie A and a Champions League semi-final is about as much as you could have expected from this group.
They should view 2018-19 as a serious opportunity to better that, though, given Napoli seem likely to drop off in the league and the club can act a little more freely in the transfer market.
7. Liverpool (-2)
The fairytale run ended in tears. Buckets of them.
Without wanting to pile the misery on Liverpool fans, who will still be heartbroken after what happened in Kiev on Saturday, we have to assess their season in the cold light of day, and the record books show zero trophies earned.
That sees them drop to seventh, below even Atletico Madrid. The brutal reality is that had they beaten Real Madrid, they would have entered the conversation for first place.
6. Atletico Madrid (+1)
Atletico Madrid's Europa League victory means their season trumps most others'. Football is about winning trophies, and for the first time in a fair while, that's what Los Colchoneros did.
From the moment they dropped into the competition, they were an obvious contender to win it. Once Borussia Dortmund and Napoli were knocked out, you just knew the stars were lining up for Diego Simeone's men.
Add this to their second-placed finish in La Liga, and you've got the bones of a campaign to look back on with pride.
5. Bayern Munich (+1)
Bayern Munich managed just a single trophy in 2017-18. It's impossible to escape the feeling that tally should have been doubled and could even have been tripled.
Winning the Bundesliga is pretty standard for this club, and with Borussia Dortmund imploding and RB Leipzig battling on multiple fronts, they found it easier than ever.
The DFB-Pokal final went disastrously, though, and had Thomas Muller and Co. not forgotten their shooting boots for the Champions League semi-finals, it might well have been them facing Liverpool on Saturday. What might have been.
4. Juventus (Stay)
We may look back on what Juventus achieved this season and appreciate it a little more than we do now.
Now it's simply a seventh straight Scudetto, which is normal procedure for the Turin giants, but they were worked so hard for this one, having to stave off a Napoli side that accrued 91 points and put them under constant duress.
Add that to their Coppa Italia win, demolishing AC Milan 4-0 in the final, and you get the impression the brilliance of this campaign is yet to truly sink in.
3. Barcelona (-1)
No unbeaten season, some unfulfillment in Europe, but still a very good campaign for Barcelona. Two trophies and a La Liga campaign with just a single loss incurred across it is one to be very pleased with.
This summer, Ernesto Valverde's No. 1 task is to address the overbearing weight on Lionel Messi's shoulders when this team attacks. Whether that's by purchasing another star or imbuing Ousmane Dembele with belief is up to him, but clear strides must be made.
2. Manchester City (-1)
A 100-point season, a Premier League trophy and a Carabao Cup to boot. 2017-18 was the best season in Manchester City's history, and the scary thing is it might only be the start of what's to come under Pep Guardiola.
The Spaniard has signed a contract extension, ensuring these excellent times will continue to roll for the foreseeable future. The next step is obvious: Conquer the Champions League.
1. Real Madrid (+2)
Picking the No. 1 was incredibly difficult. No matter how you weigh up each of the top clubs' achievements, there's no clear correct answer.
Ultimately, it comes down to which competition is the most valuable in these stakes, and we've always held the Champions League in the highest esteem. Would Manchester City, Barcelona and Juventus trade their domestic doubles for this title? The answer, genuinely, is likely to be a yes.
So that's why Real Madrid leap to the top of the rankings, finishing in the same spot as last season. It was a more flawed campaign this time around, messing the Copa del Rey up early and falling well behind in La Liga, but the Champions League is the pinnacle of this sport, and they've prevailed in it again.
In reaching the final, they beat the champions of France, Italy and Germany. Then, in front of the watching world, they outgunned one of Europe's most magnificent attacks—albeit with an injury to Mohamed Salah helping them along the way.
It's up to you if you want to take their other accomplishments this season seriously (they won the Spanish Super Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup), but you can't ignore a "threepeat" in the Champions League.
All statistics via WhoScored.com
