From: dc@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Daniel Cohen)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.soccer
Subject: Spurs - best team in Europe - Official! (was Re: Big twelve in Europe)
Date: 1 Oct 92 12:19:41 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London


Well, maybe :-)


In <1992Sep29.164216.10566@arbi.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE> Juergen.Schaepker@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Juergen Schaepker) writes:

>In the newest Kicker-mag they printed a table of the all-time greatest
>teams in the European cups. It sorted the teams only for the points
>they achieved totally. I added a coeffecient (points div games) and
>a position for that and the conclusion is:
>FC Liverpool is the best club in Europe of all times - at least the best
>of the twelve teams that were in the Kicker. I would like to have the
>records of all the other clubs too, so that I can make a regular table.
>I would like to have all records for clubs that had at least 50 European
>cup appearances (especially for teams like Nottingham Forest, Manchester U.,
>AC Torino, Borussia Dortmund to tell you some that are supposed to have a
>good record).
>
>
>Pos  Club                  Games        Goals       Points    Pos   Coeff
>
>1.  Real Madrid             246        529:261     319:173     5    1.297
>2.  FC Barcelona            245        481:265     314:176     6    1.282
>3.  Juventus Turin          209        374:178     282:136     3    1.349
>4.  Bayern Muenchen         182        378:182     246:118     2    1.352
>5.  Benfica Lisboa          192        349:185     233:151    10    1.214
>6.  RSC Anderlecht          189        355:239     230:148     9    1.217
>7.  Inter Milano            180        284:163     216:144    11    1.2
>8.  Red Star Belgrad        177        343:235     206:148    12    1.164
>9.  FC Liverpool            149        300:115     204:94      1    1.369
>10. 1.FC Koeln              159        310:183     197:121     8    1.239
>11. Ajax Amsterdam          148        285:140     193:103     4    1.304
>12. AC Milan                152        272:147     191:113     7    1.257
>
>Points: all points ever won in any EC (2 for a win, 1 for a draw)
>
>I know that this kind of table does not reflect every aspect of success in
>ECs, but IMHO it's near to be perfectly fair.


According to the results printed in the book on Spurs in Europe, we
have 59 wins, 17 draws, and 19 losses in EC1,2,3 since 1961 (the first
year Spurs entered European competitions). With 2 points for a win and
1 for a draw that gives us 135 points from 95 matches, a coefficient of
1.421 which is better than all those in your list (unless recent results
have pushed, say, Liverpool past us).

I may, however, have cheated. One of the "wins" recorded above was the
second leg of the 83-84 UEFA Cup Final, which ended 1-1 and was
followed by penalties won by Spurs. Does this count as a win or is it a
draw? If the latter then Spurs' coefficient drops to 1.411, still
comfortably better than all those on the list.

So, who can better this? Are Spurs the top club in European
competition?

(Stands back in anticipation of flames!)

Of course, there are other possible criteria; for example, Spurs have
won EC cups 3 times from 12 entries - a 25% success rate. Liverpool
have 6 wins from 23 appearances which gives them a 26% success rate.
And total successes, whilst biased towards those clubs, like Rangers,
who have an easier job to qualify for Europe, are also hard to argue
with. It's also true that most of Spurs' appearances have been in EC2
and EC3, rather than the top competition - EC1 (although Spurs' 1.375
EC1 coefficient isn't at all bad).

Could fans of other clubs do a similar job for their clubs? I'd be
interested to see, for example, the statistics for ManU. Until their
1991 success, ManU seemd to have a fairly poor record in EC2 and EC3
(no wins, or even Final appearances in 8 attempts). But they had a
superb record in the supposedly more difficult EC1 - one win, and never
been knocked out before the semi-finals in 5 appearances. And I'd like
to compare the records of the Scottish giants with those of their less
illustrious rivals in Aberdeen and Dundee (Utd.)

Daniel Cohen              Department of Computer Science 
Email: dc@dcs.qmw.ac.uk   Queen Mary and Westfield College
Tel: +44 71 975 5245/4/9  Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK
Fax: +44 81 980 6533      *** Glory, Glory, Hallelujah ***