Ranked! The 50 greatest football teams of all time
Picking the best teams in history is never easy, though FourFourTwo thrives on making the tough decisions. So, each …
Picking the best teams in history is never easy, though FourFourTwo thrives on making the tough decisions.
So, each member of staff armed with their personal favourites, FFT gathered in a darkened room one evening to refine matters. The deliberations continued well into the night.
Between the bickering, name-calling, and hair-pulling, one thing became clear: this list had to be about more than just cold, bald trophies. Football is also about intangibles: how cool a team is; what effect they have on future generations; their appearance.
You won’t find too many one-season wonders in this list, but there’s room for a few special ones.
50. Leicester (2015/16)
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You won’t find many one-season wonders in this list, but the magnitude of Leicester’s title triumph was such that it’s hard to rule them out.
Claudio Ranieri produced an almost perfect team that achieved immortality in arguably the strongest league in the world. How else could they have overthrown England’s illustrious elite just 12 months after barely surviving the fall?
Leicester had their outstanding stars — Jamie Vardy had a direct hand in 36 goals, Riyad Mahrez 29, while N’Golo Kante proved a revelation in midfield. But their real strength was the collective bond that helped them achieve great results when the pressure was greatest.
49. Saint Etienne 1973–77
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You would probably assume that Saint-Etienne’s best team would be the one Michel Platini led in the early ’80s, before he ruled Europe with Juventus. You would be wrong.
Supported by the imposing Yugoslav keeper Ivan Curkovic, the Argentine monster Osvaldo Piazza at center back and with attacking inspiration from Jean-Michel Larque, Herve Revelli and future Spurs boss Jacques Santini. Les Verts dominated French football for ten years from 1966, winning seven Ligue 1 titles, five Coupes de France and reaching the 1976 European Cup final.
48.Chelsea 2004–2006
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Jose Mourinho mixed the best of Claudio Ranieri’s team (John Terry, Frank Lampard, Damien Duff and Claude Makelele) with those already coming in for his debut campaign (Petr Cech and Arjen Robben), bringing in Didier Drogba and Ricardo Carvalho with the Petrodollars of Roman Abramovich. add a more physical, quicksilver and devastating advantage to an already talented team.
The Blues won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006 (the former by 12 points and just 15 goals conceded) with a brand of pressure football that earned them grudging respect from non-Chelsea fans.
47. Wolverhampton Wanderers 1953–60
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Dressed in classic old gold, Stan Cullis’ uncompromising and direct team worked their way to three league titles in nine years from 1953, missing a hat-trick of First Division and FA Cup-League Double titles by just a point in 1959/60 .
With a heavy emphasis on fitness and strength, Wolves’ method of pumping long balls out of defense for their forwards to chase them may have been dismissed as ‘kick and rush’ tactics, but in their nine successful years they plundered 878 goals and they surpassed the century mark in four successive seasons in the First Division.
46. Hamburg 1977–83
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Hamburg had always been on the periphery of Germany’s football elite, until two tireless workers came together just after the club won its first European trophy in the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1977.
Liverpool’s European Cup-winning star Kevin Keegan and coach Branko Zebec both trained ferociously, the latter so much so that his players openly rebelled after losing the 1980 European Cup Final to Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest.
While it would be the Croatian manager’s drinking rage that marked his downfall, the side’s staunch desire to run further and faster than the opposition saw them win three Bundesliga titles in four seasons, plus the 1983 European Cup against Juventus.
45.Marseille 1988–93
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OM’s owner, Bernard Tapie, was the mastermind behind France’s first European Cup win — and if that meant bribery, match-fixing and doping, so be it.
In reality, Marseille was good enough to conquer Europe without cheating. They lost the 1991 final to Red Star Belgrade on penalties, but two years later they outmaneuvered and outmaneuvered defending champions Milan to claim the trophy.
In the back, sweeper Basile Boli and central defender Marcel Desailly protected Fabien Barthez. Midfield featured Didier Deschamps, Abedi Pele and Chris Waddle, while the attack — featuring German World Cup winner Rudi Voller, fearsome French striker Jean-Pierre Papin and highly skilled Croatia international Alen Boksic — wasn’t too shabby either.
44. Arsenal 2003/04
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Manager Arsene Wenger was roundly mocked when he suggested in 2002 that it was possible for his team to go through the league undefeated. But in 2003/04, after surviving two early scares against Portsmouth and Manchester United, Arsenal emulated Preston’s ‘Invincibles’ and won the league without defeat.
The core of the team consisted of Thierry Henry, Robert Pires and Patrick Vieira — ‘the three musketeers’ who provided the skill, trickery and physical strength to take Arsenal to a third title in seven seasons. The fast and sharp pyrotechnic football they played was breathtaking, and in Henry and Dennis Bergkamp, Arsenal possessed two of the greatest forwards in their history.
43.Tottenham 1960–62
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With forwards Bobby Smith and Les Allen scoring goals for fun, the prodigiously gifted inside-forward John White dismantling the opposing defense with his blind-side runs and midfield anchored by the rocky Dave Mackay, Tottenham raced to the title with eight points (in the days of two for a win) in 1960/61, and then beat Leicester in the FA Cup final.
Some said Spurs would be one-season wonders, and manager Bill Nicholson feared they had a point. So he added goal machine Jimmy Greaves, retained the FA Cup and reached the semi-finals of the European Cup — where they were partially denied by suspicious referees.
42. Steaua Bucharest 1984–89
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Truth is a rare commodity when it comes to the Romania of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. But despite all the accusations of dictatorial favoritism that dogged Steaua Bucharest in the late 1980s, the Militarii went 104 domestic games undefeated from June 1986 to September 1989.
Steaua was like a Romanian Harlem Globetrotters, guided by Victor Piturca and Miodrag Belodedici’s graceful artistry. When they only signed Gheorghe Hagi for the 1986 European Super Cup, Ceausescu refused to let the Maradona of the Carpathians return to Sportul Studentesc.
They also reached two European Cup finals, beating Barcelona on penalties in 1986, before losing 4–0 to Milan two years later.
41. Leiden 1968–75
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In the Elland Road dressing room, manager Don Revie nailed a sign to the wall reading: ‘Keep fighting.’ Combining ruthless pragmatism with a shimmering skill, his Leeds team did just that as football entered the technicolor era.
After capturing their all-important first trophy in 1968 (the League Cup), Leeds went on to win two league titles, two Fairs Cups and the FA Cup in 1972. Johnny Giles, Billy Bremner, Norman Hunter and Jack Charlton earned the team its ‘mean machine tag, as Peter Lorimer’s spectacular shots, Eddie Gray’s skillful wing play and Allan “Sniffer” Clarke’s goalscoring gave the Whites their lead.
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