Top soccer leagues in the world as ranked by Opta

One of the soccer fans’ favorite things to debate is how strong one league is compared to another. A club winning La Liga, such as Real Madrid this season, is not the same task as one of the three clubs battling it out in the Premier League. Given the differences in the quality of the […]

One of the soccer fans’ favorite things to debate is how strong one league is compared to another. A club winning La Liga, such as Real Madrid this season, is not the same task as one of the three clubs battling it out in the Premier League. Given the differences in the quality of the opposition and the fact that these are domestic leagues, it is nearly impossible to directly compare leagues.

One way to compare the two is to use Opta’s power rankings. Opta, a British sports analytics firm, assigns an ability score to each team worldwide. On this scale, the top team in the world, Manchester City, has an ability score of 100. By contrast, the worst team in the world has an ability score of zero. Clubs earn points on their Elo rating by beating teams ranking higher than them. Consequently, losing to teams with a lower rating deducts more points from a side’s ability score.

It is a vastly technical process that the number wizards at Opta have been practicing for some time. While there will never be a perfect way to analyze clubs and leagues across competitions, this is perhaps the best holistic approach.

The top 30 men’s soccer leagues in the world

The following ratings are the average club rating for every team in a domestic league as of April 3, 2024. These numbers constantly change with the world’s leagues in action. With continental competition, for example, these numbers change often.

If you need any indication of how fast these rankings can change, look no further than two weeks prior. Again, these rankings apply specifically to April 3, 2024. On March 26, 2024, Major League Soccer cracked the top 10. Now, it is no longer the highest-rated league in North America. Instead, that honor belongs to Liga MX.

Since those rankings from just a few weeks ago, Liga MX sides have had strong results against Major League Soccer in the CONCACAF Champions Cup.

Averages ranked among the top soccer leagues in the world

Looking at the above chart, certain teams from those leagues prop up each of those leagues. The Eredivisie is one example. PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord rank in the top 40 clubs in the world. However, those two clubs are dragged down by Vitesse, Excelsior and Volendam. None of those clubs creep into the top 900 clubs in the world. Consequently, the league’s average ranks it as No. 15 in the world.

On the other hand, having a compact league can help the rankings. Major League Soccer shows that, as the highest-ranking team is the Columbus Crew, at No. 145. Twenty-five of MLS’s 29 teams are inside the top 500 clubs in the world That greatly helps the league’s positioning on average.

That said, here are the top clubs from each of those divisions to get a grasp on where they fall. The league rank on the left side is where the average falls. As a result, the best club’s rating will not follow numerical order.

Looking at the ‘best of the worst’ clubs in each league

It would also be fair to see the bottom half of these extremes to even out.

PHOTOS: IMAGO.