There’s no doubt about which domestic football league is the strongest. UEFA’s coefficient model, which assesses performance over five seasons, has the Premier League a considerable distance ahead of every other competition — and it has topped the seasonal rankings in five of the last six campaigns.
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It’s a similar story when you look at Opta’s Power Rankings, which assess more than 10,000 men’s teams across the globe. Premier League sides make up 12 of the top 20, with Brentford currently rated higher than reigning Serie A champions Napoli. You did not get that scenario in Diego Maradona’s heyday.
But there are two non-Premier League sides in Opta’s top five, and they meet tonight (Tuesday, November 4) at the Parc des Princes. Paris Saint-Germain are the reigning European champions, having ended their long wait to lift the Champions League trophy in May, thrashing Inter 5-0 in the final. Bayern Munich, meanwhile, have won every single game — in all competitions — they have played this season. That run of 15 successive wins from the beginning of a season is the best-ever start in any of Europe’s traditional big five leagues.
They also lie first and second in the Champions League table after three games, so it seems fair to ask: is Tuesday night’s game the meeting of European football’s two b
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