We'll be back early next week with our fourth annual World Club Ranking pre-season edition. In the
meantime, we'll return to a place where we haven't been in a while. The past.
In 1995, we saw an end to three consecutive years in which the top ranked club of the year was the
UEFA Champions Cup (now, Champions League) victor.
A complete 360 took place in the 1996 rankings from 1995. In 1995, Ajax won the European Champions
Cup only to finish second to Juventus in the rankings because of the lower ranking of the
Eredivisie. In 1996, Juventus defeated Ajax on penalty kicks in the final of the European Champions
Cup, but still finished behind Ajax in the rankings because AC Milan was able to take the Serie A
title away from Juventus.
Since there is an international break in club action this weekend, we are going to take advantage
of the break to bring the next entry in our series of Annual Club Rankings.
For the second time in three years, Juventus headed the top of the Annual Rankings despite
finishing as runner-up in the European Champions Cup.
Since we're in the midst of another international break, this week's edition of the WCR Top 25
Clubs in the World goes back in time to 1998.
1998 marked the fourth year in a row that Juventus ended up either on top of the Annual Rankings or
with the European Champions Cup. Once again, Juventus finished atop the rankings despite being
runner-up in the UEFA Champions League, losing 0-1 to Real Madrid in the final, since Real Madrid
could manage no better than a fourth-place finish in La Liga's Primera División.
Welcome to the fifty-second annual WCR Top 25 rankings. For years, we have been describing how this
list is compiled. In brief, the rankings are based on (a) the domestic results for each club's most
recent completed season (either 2011 or 2010-11) and (b) performances in the continental
championship tournaments through the use of bonus points.
