(internet sports sciences, simplified beyond belief)
The methodology for this list this first time is simple – I valued teams for finishing in the top 3 of their domestic league for each of the past ten years, with most recent year weighted heaviest, most not recent year (10 years ago) weighted lightest, with 3 for first, 2 for second, and 1 for third. I also did this for the top continental club tournaments per continental confederation (except Oceania because lolol how the fuck do you play proper football on the ocean?) and also even the world club championships, so that some teams got bonus plus points from those things. But also, look I am a real dude doing real things in a supremely real life, so it’s not like I’m gonna do this for every domestic league on earth. So I did some of them. Which ones? Whichever ones seemed most important to me in an intuitively gut level, as well as probably the most prominent ones on earth, although that itself is a self-perpetuating colonialism, and I don’t want my Sportsball 69 project to be tainted by such bullshit (even though it probably will because we probably always are). But I did a lot of them, most all the big ones from Europe and some of the other countries that I am fascinated by, and the top couple in Africa and Japan and North America and a big chunk of South America, but all these leagues have different chaoses and structures, so even with my set method here for this first time listing, it got messed up here or there. You know what I did in those instances? Whatever felt truest to the purpose, even if that meant just straight up skipping years or giving up because it required too much research (beyond the magic combo of Wikipedia and Soccerway).
So now that you know the basic dork matrix methodology for this first month’s list, let’s run through the middle third…
#24: DYNAMO KYIV (110 pts): top Ukrainian team, so top that it was still mid-top even during Soviet philosophical colonization; post-Soviet collapse has been stalwart Kings of Free Ukraine, 28 times 28 times 28 times champion of domestic league, including a lucky 13 times as champion numero uno of Soviet top league (now long fractured into this and that)
#25: BOCA JUNIORS (109 pts): Maradona’s psychic home, and perhaps the most popular South American team on earth, although supported at home by legit crazy fuckers; I guess could sort of be considered the ManU of South America (weird how lots of dudes like those two teams specifically) but only if ManU were unpolished, non-corporate, and still street legit (and barrio approved)
#26: CERRO PORTENO (108 pts): Paraguay’s hardcore darlings, and old and popular FC for that nation, who remains most relevant thru the footballs
#27: MANCHESTER UNITED (106 pts): basically the Boca Juniors of White Earth; home to lemonface Wayne Rooney, the most easily hated man in all of the world’s football; and now also the home to self-hype machine Jose Mourinho, who will spend millions of euros and hopefully fail immediately (instead of his usual 18 months down the road)
#28: AKTOBE (104 pts): aka the Aktyubinets, top Kazakh club owned literally by “Aktobe Region” – a true team of the people who make their small-steppe nation way into early stages of European cups to confound richer, more sterilized and easily shocked footballing nations; goat meat forever in my opinion
#29: STEAUA BUCURESTI (104 pts): shout out to Romania’s most trophied up club; shout out those north African/east European sporting clubs with not only football but also basketball, handball, swimming, wrestling, cycling, judo teams; shout out Bucuresti derbies inside the city but especially the great one betwixt Steaua and Dinamo – real football rivalries, not no “lolol let’s take up 4 hours Saturday night ABC/ESPN but only actually play smashhead game for like 11 minutes tops”
#30: ZENIT ST PETERSBURG (100 pts): Hulk play for Zenit St Petersburg but Zenit St Petersburg fans ultra-racialist also ultra-homophobic, demand Hulk smash way out of pure Russia, not even winning help because winning not winning if not done in pure ways of white Russian
#31: AMERICA (99 pts): this is not America the America (which the real D Trump gonna make great again, you watch) but America the Mexico football team what which just won the North American version of the Champions League and also maintains stellar reputation amidst freestyle clusterfuck of Mexico soccer chaos structure; one time I don’t mind saying Go America!
#32: ENYIMBA (98 pts): Enyimba are one of the first Nigerian teams in recent memory to make it through to group stage of African Champions League (begins later this month – check your local obscure football streaming listings), which is proud moment but not really because even though football is by far number one sporting and leisure activity in Nigeria, everyone suffers from post-colonial self-loathing in this corporate globalization era, watching European football first, thinking of Nigerian premier teams as far from premier and not worth attention
#33: BORUSSIA DORTMUND (97 pts): when I started dorking to international footballs, BVB was making their Champions League run under crazy man Jurgen Klopp, and fan/supporter/ultra displays during that run were fairly amazing, and as crazy as Klopp appears sometimes (especially to genetically uptight English fucks), and it made me love the team; but also you have to wonder is nut like Klopp born from team like BVB or is team born from Klopp or both, and if both (which I say is the right answer) why don’t more clubs encourage such relationships because god, it’s what any sane fun-loving fan wants
#34: ZAMALEK (97 pts): one of Egypt’s big two, and as is the case with most Big Two eternal derbies, one is of the people and the other is of the oppressor class; Zamalek traditionally is of the oppressor (military) class, but with recent upheaval in Egypt, perhaps now is not you would think, yet somehow people remain crushed and power remains powerful, regardless of the era or empire
#35: KANO PILLARS (95 pts): one of best clubs in Nigeria, which is a colonially drawn geographic creation of a nation-state in Africa; the Pillars are premier team of Kano region, which historically was where Kano Kingdom existed before Fulani conquest and ultimately European exploitation of the African continent, which is ongoing through capitalist corporation colonization of all valuable resources, but done with local figureheads so as to seem all open and friendly and shit; Pillars have a dope crest – green and yellow crests remain top style, regardless of continent or era
#36: CORINTHIANS (95 pts): all I can think of is Ricardo Montalban; audiobooks of every poetr book I’ve ever self-published exist in deep space multiverse, all read by Ricardo Montalban, with Herve Villechaize working as hype man; not enough audiobooks utilize hypeman techniques, by the way
#37: PENAROL (94 pts): ahh, Uruguay – such a beautiful tiny nation which has football performed far above its population base; this has culminated in many things for the rest of the world to enjoy, and one of them is Penarol, who has the most aesthetically pleasing footballing crest on all the earth
#38: GALATASARAY (93 pts): when I was made aware of the insane joys of Turkish league soccer, I ever so briefly flirted with caring about Galatasaray, due to a Didier Drogba fetish at the time; but a little bit of internet video watching and I quickly realized that philosophically I stood more in-line with their rival Fenerbahce (which supports the people vs. oppressor theory of big soccer rivalries, although Besiktas, also in Istanbul, shows the fallacy of two-party system and how third parties are probably even more relevant to me personally); and yet, even with that change in heart, there can be no denying there is no scarier place for visiting teams or amazing thing to see (and a place I’d love to go in my real life at some point before dying) than a big, fiery WELCOME TO HELL beginning to a Galat home match; (you should probably just google “Welcome to Hell Galatasaray” if you don’t know about that shit)
#39: CRUSADERS (92 pts): Crusaders FC are top club from Northern Ireland, and that alone is a lot to handle on the heart level because when it comes to that United Kingdom divisive conflict between tribal Celts and empirical Anglicans, I stand with non-empirical peoples always, anywhere on earth; my shoot last name is Scottish and my paternal bloodlines are straight up Appalachian hillbillies who arrived by boat from Scotland nether regions, and in fact it is all these things that make me conceive of “sportsball 69” instead of “TEN TEAMS WHO STAND BEST CHANCE AT WINNING NEXT YEAR’S CHAMPIONS LEAGUE” because big data is empirical and thus Anglican and thus devilry, and even in metaphysical meandering list, I cannot endorse, not even tacitly, crusading devilry
#40: SANTOS LAGUNA (90 pts): neon green socks, in Mexico, equals unstoppable force; add in stereotypical visions of brown-skinned women in white cotton sundresses and psychic game over
#41: CSKA MOSCOW (90 pts): was literally the Soviet army’s team during Soviet Union of Russia and its subjugate states, so as you can imagine, not the most popular team in non-Russian places; now privately owned with minority ownership by Russian Ministry of Defence, thus still the military’s team, just privatized, in nefarious ways; also as you can imagine, draws some of the sport’s least open-minded fans in one of the earth’s least open-minded domestic leagues, but hey, it takes all kinds to make the world go round (including drunken racialists with highly questionable tattoos)
#42: MANCHESTER CITY (89 pts): I hate ManCity because they wear Tarheel Blue and represent that same godless ethos of purchased dominance; but then just as I had discovered a team to give my full psychic attention to in Swansea, who were powered by the simplistic grace of Wilfried Bony, he was bought up by ManCity; now this is normal for football, and in itself not an eternal slight, except Bony was leading goalscorer for EPL at that point, and was then situated firmly on ManCity bench as potential replacement for whatever might need replacing, essentially put on striker ice, having had 18 primetime months of his simplistically graceful life put on mute, all because of ManCity having too much money; but rest assured, the world economy will collapse, and modern corporate football will absolve itself into irrelevance (because there will be no profit)
#43: SEPAHAN (87 pts): Persepolis and Esteghlal, both based in Tehran, have traditionally been the two dominant powers in Iranian football; but in recent history, Sepahan has become new force, winning five titles since Persian Gulf Pro League’s current format was institutionalized in 2001 (more than anybody else) and collecting other hardware in cups and continental comps along the way as well; they are known (according to Wikipedia, which is probably sketchy source for anything) as Asia’s Yellow Storm, which I refuse to make any sort of joke about so as to avoid eventual Raven Mack Horrible Person thinkpieces once I become famous for my outsider arts of various methods (and I’ve probably given enough arsenal for such thinkpieces already, to be honest)
#44: ATLETICO MADRID (86 pts): actually was rooting for these godless fuckers this past weekend, just because they were playing the even further godlessly bastards from Real Madrid; and though the game ended in tragic “almost” as is destiny for teams like Atletico Madrid, I was able to instill in my 8-year-old child a strong understanding of why to hate Cristiano Ronaldo
#45: LA GALAXY (86 pts): the US home of Landon Donovan, as well as career twilight David Beckham, which should tell you all you should need to know about LA Galaxy; in fact that is a psychic litmus test, because if you think to yourself “well that’s great, London Ativan is great, and who doesn’t love David Beckham?” then you are definitely in the wrong place and you’ll never understand Sportsball 69 and you’ll also never understand 69 itself so I imagine you are strong purveyor of patriarchy and predatory behaviors and I hope my great-grandchildren stab your great-grandchildren with rusty holograms of knives
#46: VELEZ SARSFIELD (85 pts): Velez Sarsfield is last on this list today, and any time I see a short, overweight, latino dude walking alongside the road (about once a month it seems), I always assume in my brain his name is Velez Sarsfield, and he is almost always walking to K-Mart
TOMORROW: we wrap this thing up, like a lubricated condom
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