WCR Top 25 Pre-Season 2023-24

World Club Rankings - Top 25 - Pre-Season 2023-24

Welcome to our 2023-2024 Preseason rankings, the first issue of the season for World Club Rankings.  We are excited to see a new season start and we are hoping for as many surprises, both good and bad, as we saw last season with clubs like Newcastle United (good surprise) and Chelsea (bad surprise).

There has been one major change in our methodology.  One of the sites on which we depended has gotten out of the football rankings game.  Fivethirtyeight, with Nate Silver and ESPN behind it, suffered in the mass layoff at ABC and their global football rankings were one of the casualties.  We will still be relying on the other four ranking services that we use, which can be found in our methodology page.  We were excited that we might have found alternates to replace the demised 538, but Football League Rankings appears to just be a copy of the 538 rankings and they have not been updated independently, and Tips.GG appears to be a mere copy of the Football Database rankings that we already use.

Enough about methodology, let’s talk about football.  All of our sources’ rankings are based on performance data of clubs in matches that count, and very few clubs have played any such matches since our end-of-year rankings back in June.  As a result, there are very few substantial changes in our rankings from that time. 

When the dust settled from the loss of Fivethirtyeight and the minor changes in the other sources, Inter Milan replaced Arsenal in the Top Five, leading into the Gunners’ Community Shield match against Manchester City.  A little lower down the chart, Juventus moved past Aston Villa into a Top 20 spot and Tottenham returned to the rankings, replacing Lazio, who dropped out.

All of the rankings are below.  If you don’t like the list, please feel free to check out our methodology page, which includes links to all of the source data we are using. 

1.  Manchester City (Eng) (100 pts) (4 first place votes) (LW 1) - Manchester City looked like the Community Shield in the bag before a 145th minute goal (I exaggerate a bit) by Arsenal tied the match and sent it to penalty kicks, where the Gunners ultimately prevailed.  City will begin the defense of their Premier League title in the first match of the season in the league on Friday night at Burnley, who will have their hands full in their return from the Championship.

2.  Bayern Munich (Ger) (94 pts) (LW 2) - Bayern will open the competitive part of its season this week in Saturday night’s German Super Cup in which they will host RB Leipzig at Allianz Arena.

3.  Liverpool (Eng) (89 pts) (LW 4) -Liverpool’s opening match of the season might be the most exciting one of the weekend when they travel to Stamford Bridge on Sunday afternoon to face Chelsea in their Premier League opener.

4. Real Madrid (Esp) (88 pts) (LW 3) -After finishing off the pre-season with losses to Barcelona and Juventus, Real Madrid is probably up for a little lighter competition.  That’s probably the case, but they will have to travel to San Marmes Barria to take on Athletic Bilbao in the La Liga season opener on Saturday night, and that is never an easy match.

5.  Inter Milan (Ita) (80 pts) (LW 8) - Season begins on August 19.

6. Arsenal (Eng) (79 points) (LW 5) - Arsenal pulled off an upset win over Manchester City in the opening meaningful (-ish) match of the season to take home the Community Shield.  The Gunners will get their Premier League season underway in the early match on Saturday at home against Nottingham Forest.

7.   Napoli (Ita) (78 pts) (LW 6) - Season begins on August 19.

8. Barcelona (Esp) (67 points) (LW 7) - Barcelona played a lot of interesting matches during their pre-season.  The regular season opener might be a little anticlimactic when they travel to take on Getafe on Sunday night. 

9.  Manchester United (Eng) (64 pts) (LW 10) - The Red Devils will be at home in the final match of the Premier League’s first week when they host Wolverhampton on Monday night.

10.  Borussia Dortmund (Ger) (59 pts) (LW 9) - Dortmund will play their first competitive match, or at least what one hopes might be competitive, on the road against Regionalliga club TSV Schott Mainz on Saturday.

11.  Atlético Madrid (Esp) (59 pts) (LW 12)

12.  RB Leipzig (Ger) (55 pts) (LW 11)

13.  Porto (Por) (55 pts) (LW 14)

14.  Newcastle United (Eng) (51 pts) (LW 13)

15.  Paris St. Germain (Fra) (39 pts) (LW 16)

16.  Benfica (Por) (39 pts) (LW 15)

17.  AC Milan (Ita) (35 pts) (LW 17)

18.  Palmeiras (Bra) (24 pts) (LW 22)

19.  Brighton (Eng) (23 pts) (LW 18)

20.  Real Sociedad (Esp) (20 pts) (LW 19)

21.  Juventus (Ita) (17 pts) (LW 21)

22. Aston Villa (Eng) (16 pts) (LW 20)

23. Brentford (Eng) (15 pts) (LW 23)

24. Tottenham Hotspur (Eng) (12 pts) (NR)

25.  Chelsea (Eng) (11 pts) (LW 25)

Also receiving points: RB Salzburg (Aut) (10), Lazio (Ita) (9), PSV Eindhoven (Ned) (7), Lens (Fra) (5), Sevilla (Esp) (4), Villarreal (Esp) (3), Feyenoord (Ned) (2), Roma (Ita) (2), Sporting CP (Por) (1).