It took long enough, but Chelsea's victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the Club World Cup final marked the end of the 25th European soccer season this century.

And as my colleague Bill Barnwell recognized last week, 25 is halfway to 50 and a quarter of the way to 100. So, he ranked the top 25 NFL teams of the past 25 years, and now I'm here with your ranking of the top 25 club teams of the 21st century.

The way the game is played has changed drastically since 2000. Think of it this way: Oleg Blokhin, Franz Beckenbauer, and Johan Cruyff finished one-two-three in Ballon d'Or voting in 1975. In 2000, the top three were Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, and Andriy Shevchenko. If you watch highlights from those two eras, the sport barely resembles itself -- and the same amount of time has passed since this century began.

But that doesn't mean we can't compare teams across the past 25 years. To do so, I've looked at every season played across Europe's Big Five top leagues since 2000. First, I ranked all of those teams by a combination of points per game and goal differential per game, with a 60-40 weighting in favor of points. Then, I adjusted for league difficulty, based on the average ratings for each league in each of the past 25 seasons from the Club Elo ratings.

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From there, I awarded teams with bonus points for winning the Champions League, reaching the final, reaching the semifinals, reaching the quarterfinals, and reaching the round of 16. Based on those points, the final rating comes out to about a 70% weight for domestic performance and a 30% weight for Champions League performance. Given that domestic play isn't as prone to random fluctuation as the Champions League since the schedules are balanced and there are three times as many games, that feels about right to me.

Now, let's get to the top 25 of the past 25 years ...

25. PSG, 2024-25

-Points per game: 2.47
-Goal differential per game: plus-1.68
-Champions League: winner

Fittingly, the 25th-best team of the past 25 years is the best team of 2025. Two other PSG teams produced more points in Ligue 1, and four outscored their opponents at a higher rate. But Luis Enrique's side found a way to do what no other PSG side could do and concentrate their excellence down into the most important part of the season: from March until May.

24. Real Madrid, 2023-24

-Points per game: 2.5
-Goal differential per game: plus-1.61
-Champions League: winner

Remember that whole spiel about methodology in the intro? That was a lie. This is just a list of the teams that won the past 25 Champions League titles, in reverse chronological order.

OK, now that's a lie -- because only 12 Champions League winners even made the list.

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The funny thing about Real Madrid is that they frequently win the Champions League without playing all that well in LaLiga. In 2002, they won the European Cup despite 66 points, a plus-25 goal differential, and a third-place finish in Spain. That level of performance in LaLiga this past season would've put them in the Europa League next year.

As for the 2023-24 team, they were terrible in the first half of the final against Borussia Dortmund, but unlike in years past, they didn't need smoke-and-mirrors-and-95th-minute goals to get there. Yes, they took down Manchester City in a shootout and Bayern Munich with a late comeback, but they hung tight with City for most of the matchup and significantly outplayed Bayern in the semis. This also was borne out in the league: They finished 10 points ahead of second, took home 95, and lost one game all season.

23. Barcelona, 2016-17

-Points per game: 2.37
-Goal differential per game: plus-2.1
-Champions League: quarterfinalist

This was the last year of the Luis Enrique, Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez and Neymar era. It featured the famous comeback against PSG, but neither a European nor domestic league triumph. But this Barcelona team reached 90 points in the league and produced a plus-79 goal differential, which was 14 goals better than first-place Real Madrid. Most notably, they scored 116 goals in LaLiga -- the third most of any team across the Big Five leagues this century.

This team won everything with these players and this coach -- and it still feels as if they won less than they should've.

22. Real Madrid, 2013-14

-Points per game: 2.29
-Goal differential per game: plus-1.74
-Champions League: winner

Yes, they finished third in LaLiga that year, but 87 points, a plus-66 goal differential, and a Champions League title is an all-time great season for most clubs.

Ángel Di María, in particular, was incredible in his last year in Spain. He played as a kind of hybrid winger/midfielder who covered all of the ground that the front three of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, and Gareth Bale wouldn't. His pass map from the Champions League final is unlike anything I've ever seen before:

Di Maria was able to be a supporting glue-guy or a goal-scoring superstar. Manchester United signed him after this match -- and they still found a way to screw it up.

21. Manchester City, 2022-23

-Points per game: 2.34
-Goal differential per game: plus-1.61
-Champions League: winner

Arguably the greatest Premier League team of all time is ... 21st?

This Man City team was like this season's PSG team: They finally figured out a way to turn it on at the right time. But other City sides were way more dominant from start to finish than this team was. Five other City teams produced better point totals and eight other City sides produced better goal differentials. To win the Champions League, you don't need to win it when you're at your best. It's too random and chaotic for that. No, to win the Champions League, you have to either A) be Real Madrid, or B) be good enough to win it, year after year after year.

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Real Madrid, 2016-17

-Points per game: 2.45
-Goal differential per game: plus-1.71
-Champions League: winner

This is one of my favorite stats: As manager, Zinedine Zidane won more Champions League trophies (3) than LaLiga titles (2) with Real Madrid. This was the one season when he did both.

15. Manchester City, 2018-19

-Points per game: 2.58
-Goal differential per game: plus-1.90
-Champions League: quarterfinalist

Take everything from that section about Bayern in 2015-16 and apply it here: more than enough chances, a legend missing a spot kick and tiebreakers leading to elimination. City lost the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals in London to Tottenham 1-0 after Sergio Aguero missed a penalty. They needed to win the second leg by two goals and just about did enough to get there:

But instead, a bunch of shots went in, and they were eliminated via the away-goals rule by a team that finished 28 points behind them in the Premier League table.

14. Barcelona, 2015-16

-Points per game: 2.39
-Goal differential per game: plus-2.18
-Champions League: quarterfinalist

Since 2000, only two teams across Europe's Big Five leagues have scored more than 110 goals in a season and given up fewer than 30. Luis Enrique's second year with Barcelona was one of them. Again, this three-year stretch was even more impressive than anyone remembers.

13. Barcelona, 2009-10

-Points per game: 2.61
-Goal differential per game: 1.95
-Champions League: semifinalist

Barcelona's 2009-10 team had a star-studded group of players, including, from left, Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thierry Henry. Denis Doyle/Getty Images

It's wild that this season is remembered as something of a failure. Barcelona swapped Samuel Eto'o for Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but then lost to Eto'o and Inter Milan in the Champions League semifinals despite playing a man up for the final hour of the tie. Ibrahimovic scored 16 goals and added six assists in the league, but he was subbed off with a half-hour left in the Inter matchup and left the club after the season.

At the same time, Barcelona won 99 points in LaLiga and conceded 24 goals in 38 matches. Put another way: Real Madrid scored 102 goals, produced 96 points, and didn't even win the league.

12. Bayern Munich, 2019-20

-Points per game: 2.41
-Goal differential per game: plus-2.0
-Champions League: winner

This was a weird season for two reasons: 1) Bayern fired their coach in November, and 2) The whole, you know, COVID-19 pandemic.

But there's a reasonable argument that this season should be even higher on the list.

Real Madrid, 2014-15

-Points per game: 2.42
-Goal differential per game: plus-2.11
-Champions League: semifinalist

While Bayern fired Niko Kovac and replaced him with Hansi Flik during the previously mentioned season, Real Madrid fired Carlo Ancelotti after the 2014-15 season.

In other words, he won the Champions League -- the long-sought-after La Decima, Madrid's record 10th European Cup -- in 2013-14.

Manchester City, 2017-18

-Points per game: 2.63
-Goal differential per game: plus-2.08
-Champions League: quarterfinalist

The team with the best goal differential and most points in Premier League history lands only in 10th.

Barcelona, 2012-13

-Points per game: 2.63
-Goal differential per game: plus-1.98
-Champions League: semifinalist

In Tito Vilanova's only season as a professional manager, his team tied the LaLiga record for points with 100 and became the first Spanish team to score in all 38 top-flight matches.

Compared to every other team, they won more points per game than all but two teams this century, and their per-game goal differential is the eighth-best mark since 2000.

The only major blemish: a 5-0 aggregate loss to Real Madrid in the Champions League semifinals.

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