So, that is what has been done here. The last two games pitting the best clubs in Europe against each other have been found (friendlies excluded, only competitive matches have been counted), and the results have been compiled into a league table.
To limit the extension of the experiment, the criterion used to select the teams involved has been the number of games played in the Champions League since 1992-93. That was the year when the European Cup introduced group stages into the competition, and since then every new change in the format of the tournament has favoured that the best clubs in the continent play in it every year or almost. It has also meant that the Champions League is the only place where the best teams from different European countries can face each other. If you want to play competitively against the likes of Barcelona or Real Madrid, you just have to be in this competition, although sometimes important teams see themselves "demoted" to the Europa League.
In August 2026 the list of the 106 teams to have played 10 or more matches in the Champions League (qualifying matches excluded) since August 1992 stood as follows:
01 338 SPA Real Madrid
02 320 GER Bayern München
03 318 SPA FC Barcelona
04 248 ENG Manchester United
05 234 ITA Juventus Torino
06 224 POR FC Porto
07 220 ENG Arsenal London
08 208 ITA AC Milan
09 207 ENG Chelsea London
10 183 FRA Paris Saint-Germain
11 183 GER Borussia Dortmund
12 177 ITA Internazionale Milano
13 175 ENG Liverpool FC
14 164 POR Benfica Lisboa
15 153 ESP Atlético Madrid
16 145 ENG Manchester City
17 144 NET Ajax Amsterdam
18 142 NET PSV Eindhoven
19 140 TUR Galatasaray Istanbul
20 138 GRE Olympiacos Pirea
21 136 FRA Olympique Lyonnais
22 134 UKR Dynamo Kyiv
23 129 GER Bayer Leverkusen
24 126 UKR Shakhtar Donetsk
25 112 ESP Valencia CF
26 104 ITA AS Roma
27 103 FRA AS Monaco
28 95 FRA Olympique Marseille
29 92 BEL Anderlecht Bruxelles
30 88 SCO Celtic Glasgow
31 88 BEL Club Brugge
32 84 POR Sporting Lisboa
33 84 GRE Panathinaikos Athinai
34 84 RUS Spartak Moskva
35 82 RUS CSKA Moskva
36 78 CZE Sparta Praha .
37 78 SCO Rangers Glasgow
38 78 NOR Rosenborg Trondheim
39 66 ITA SSC Napoli
40 66 ESP Sevilla CF
40 66 GER Schalke Gelsenkirchen
41 63 ENG Tottenham London
42 60 FRA OSC Lille
43 60 ITA Lazio Roma
44 60 SUI FC Basel
45 60 RUS Zenit St Petersburg
52 58 DEN FC Kobenhavn
46 58 NET Feyenoord Rotterdam
47 58 CRO Dinamo Zagreb
49 58 SPA Deportivo La Coruña
50 56 RUS Lokomotiv Moskva
51 54 TUR Besiktas Istanbul
53 50 GER Werder Bremen
54 48 SPA Villarreal CF
55 48 GER RB Leipzig
56 46 AUT Red Bull Salzburg
57 43 ITA Atalanta Bergamo
58 40 ROM Steaua Bucuresti
59 40 TUR Fenerbahce Istanbul
60 40 SWE IFK Göteborg
61 36 ENG Newcastle United
62 36 GRE AEK Athinai
63 34 FRA Girondins Bordeaux
64 33 GER VfB Stuttgart
65 30 BLR BATE Borisov
66 28 CYP APOEL Nicosia
67 26 SWI Young Boys Bern
68 26 SER Crvena Zvezda Beograd
69 26 AUT Sturm Graz
70 24 CZE Viktoria Plzen
71 24 ITA AS Fiorentina
72 22 SPA Real Sociedad San Sebastián
73 22 ENG Leeds United
74 22 FRA Nantes Atlantique
92 20 CZE Slavia Praha
93 20 ESP Athletic Bilbao
75 20 GER Borussia Mönchengladbach
76 20 FRA AJ Auxerroise
77 18 FRA RC Lens
78 18 SWE Malmö FF
79 18 BEL RC Genk
80 18 ISR Maccabi Haifa
81 18 ROM CFR Cluj
82 18 SLN NK Maribor
83 18 POR Boavista Porto
84 16 AZE Qarabag Agdam
85 16 GER Eintracht Frankfurt
86 16 GER VfL Wolfsburg
87 14 ISR Maccabi Tel-Aviv
88 14 HUN Ferencvaros Budapest
89 14 AUT Austria Wien
90 14 POL Legia Warszawa
91 12 ENG Aston Villa Birmingham
94 12 NOR Bodo/Glimt
95 12 SVK Slovan Bratislava
95 12 BUL Ludogorets Razgrad
96 12 POR Sporting Braga
97 12 GER Hamburger SV
98 12 SER Partizan Beograd
99 12 RUS Rubin Kazan
100 12 AUT Rapid Wien
101 12 DEN Alborg BK
102 12 SWI Grasshopper Zurich
103 11 ITA Sampdoria Genova
104 10 FRA Stade Brestois
105 10 ENG Leicester City
106 10 SPA Málaga CF
The following provisions and rules must be taken into account:
1 - The number of games played in the Champions League is the sole criterion for entry in the EFCL, but once a team has been entered, the last two competitive matches against the other teams will be used for this table, regardless of the tournament in which these games were played or how old these matches are. The tournaments allowed include the Champions League itself, but also the Europa League, the Conference League and the European Supercup.
Also, and very importantly, domestic matches played between teams from the same country are used, be they league, cup, league cup or supercup games. Any last two competitive matches in any competition is the absolute rule, even if they belong to two different competitions, national or international.
2 - Some teams have never played each other competitively. Valencia have never played Milan, for example, and Chelsea have never faced Lyon, and PSG have only ever been pitted against Inter Milan once (the 2025 Champions League final). In these cases, any non-played games have been considered 0-0 draws. This might not be the most perfect solution, but in the absence of those data, I would rather do this than consider them unplayed "games in hand" for decades. We will just have to wait until one day these missing ties are played. This will really hurt Manchester City, for example, as they are a comparative newcomer to playing all the time against the top European teams, and because of this, they have never played against as many as 5 other teams in this compilation (Benfica, PSV, Anderlecht, Panathinaikos, Spartak). That's a lot of winnable games, but if we called those "games in hand" and didn't include them even as a mere 0-0, City would be even lower in the table. Again, this is just a simulation with the available data, and it's not perfect.
3 - Some games in the table are quite old, but, again, there's nothing to be done about it except waiting for these teams to be paired up again, so that the results become more relevant.
4 - On the other hand, some teams play each other very frequently, for example in England, where some clubs could face each other up to nine times in a season (Community Shield, league, FA Cup, league cup and European competition), so sometimes a result becomes the third-to-last game played between those two teams (and therefore is discarded from this table) very quickly. This happened to Chelsea and Manchester City, who played each other three times in April and May of 2021. A national supercup game, for example, is guaranteed not to last until the end of the season, because at least two league games will be played between those two teams just a few months later.
5 - When a new eligible game is played, the second-to-last match between the same teams disappears from the table to make room for the new result. This can cause swings of up to six points (actual six-pointers) if a team replaces a game they had won with one they now lose, and vice versa. Two teams tied on 60 points, for example, could end up on 57 and 63 respectively if the new game is won by the team who had lost the match due to "disappear" from the table.
1 - The number of games played in the Champions League is the sole criterion for entry in the EFCL, but once a team has been entered, the last two competitive matches against the other teams will be used for this table, regardless of the tournament in which these games were played or how old these matches are. The tournaments allowed include the Champions League itself, but also the Europa League, the Conference League and the European Supercup.
Also, and very importantly, domestic matches played between teams from the same country are used, be they league, cup, league cup or supercup games. Any last two competitive matches in any competition is the absolute rule, even if they belong to two different competitions, national or international.
2 - Some teams have never played each other competitively. Valencia have never played Milan, for example, and Chelsea have never faced Lyon, and PSG have only ever been pitted against Inter Milan once (the 2025 Champions League final). In these cases, any non-played games have been considered 0-0 draws. This might not be the most perfect solution, but in the absence of those data, I would rather do this than consider them unplayed "games in hand" for decades. We will just have to wait until one day these missing ties are played. This will really hurt Manchester City, for example, as they are a comparative newcomer to playing all the time against the top European teams, and because of this, they have never played against as many as 5 other teams in this compilation (Benfica, PSV, Anderlecht, Panathinaikos, Spartak). That's a lot of winnable games, but if we called those "games in hand" and didn't include them even as a mere 0-0, City would be even lower in the table. Again, this is just a simulation with the available data, and it's not perfect.
3 - Some games in the table are quite old, but, again, there's nothing to be done about it except waiting for these teams to be paired up again, so that the results become more relevant.
4 - On the other hand, some teams play each other very frequently, for example in England, where some clubs could face each other up to nine times in a season (Community Shield, league, FA Cup, league cup and European competition), so sometimes a result becomes the third-to-last game played between those two teams (and therefore is discarded from this table) very quickly. This happened to Chelsea and Manchester City, who played each other three times in April and May of 2021. A national supercup game, for example, is guaranteed not to last until the end of the season, because at least two league games will be played between those two teams just a few months later.
5 - When a new eligible game is played, the second-to-last match between the same teams disappears from the table to make room for the new result. This can cause swings of up to six points (actual six-pointers) if a team replaces a game they had won with one they now lose, and vice versa. Two teams tied on 60 points, for example, could end up on 57 and 63 respectively if the new game is won by the team who had lost the match due to "disappear" from the table.
All in all, the current table reflects the status of Europe's Big Three of Real Madrid, Bayern and Barça at the top, almost always there or thereabouts for many years, and a mighty scramble behind them, both for the trophy itself and for positions in the top 8 of the EFCL, which would mean the most likely teams to make up most year's quarter-finals.
And this is it, basically. As I said, this project is merely a curiosity, and you can pick many holes in it, so I am not claiming it should be The True Way Of Deciding Who Is The Best, but on the other hand it is comprehensive, it takes into account as many as 70 matches per team, and those games were actually won, drawn or lost, so what's the harm in drawing conclusions from them? Therefore, I will continue to treat the EFCL at least half-seriously and see where it takes us.
And this is it, basically. As I said, this project is merely a curiosity, and you can pick many holes in it, so I am not claiming it should be The True Way Of Deciding Who Is The Best, but on the other hand it is comprehensive, it takes into account as many as 70 matches per team, and those games were actually won, drawn or lost, so what's the harm in drawing conclusions from them? Therefore, I will continue to treat the EFCL at least half-seriously and see where it takes us.
In 2021 several of these clubs tried to break away to form a European Super League, a project that was sunk by fan protests in about two days. From what we could find out about it, it wouldn't have been a true league, but it would have followed the same format of group stages followed by knockout rounds that the Champions League has now, plus I'm afraid that the vitriol directed at the ESL has now scuppered forever the idea that the top European teams play each other more often than until now, not because it's not a good idea, but because in many people's minds it could end up leading again towards the breakaway. For the record, I'm against a "closed shop" system that guarantees some clubs a permanent entry in the ESL, but I think that it makes sense that the best clubs in the continent want to play each other all the time, as they each do in their own domestic leagues.
Thanks for the time you took to look through this blog.
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