# GloryHunt

> GloryHunt is an all-time ranking of football (soccer) clubs by Success and Efficiency,
> computed from the final league tables and knockout brackets of 5,327 league
> seasons and cup tournaments (81 competitions, 1872 to 2026). Every formula
> is public; the data is renewed once a year and runs through the 2025/26 season.
> It is an independent, non-commercial project by one football fan, not affiliated with any
> club, league or federation.

## How the ranking works

GloryHunt ranks clubs with two numbers, computed only from final classifications (league
tables, group tables and knockout brackets) -- no match scores, squad values, player data or
opinion polls.

- **Success**: everything a club won, each finish weighted by how hard that competition was
  to win. A finish earns a share of the competition's value: the title 1, the runner-up
  1/phi^2 = 0.382 (phi is the golden ratio), a semi-final 0.182, a quarter-final 0.078.
- **Efficiency**: the share of what a club could have won in the competitions it entered
  that it actually won (a title every time would be 100%). **Edge** compares that to an
  average participant of the same competitions (x1.00 = average).
- **The value of a competition** is V = Field x F x Lambda: Field is how strong the clubs in
  it were (estimated from the tables themselves), F how long and demanding its format was,
  Lambda its level (a domestic league 1; a Champions League title is calibrated to be worth
  phi^2 = 2.618 times the strongest league title of its season).
- Official records decide disputed places and titles: titles a federation vacated or
  reassigned, clubs it placed last, shared titles (each club gets the average of first
  and second place).

## What it covers

- Domestic leagues (top two tiers where available), national cups, league cups and super
  cups of: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay. Yugoslav and Soviet competitions count for the clubs of their
  successor countries.
- UEFA competitions (European Cup / Champions League, Cup Winners' Cup, UEFA Cup / Europa
  League, Conference League, Super Cup, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup), CONMEBOL competitions
  (Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana, Recopa) and the world level (Intercontinental Cup,
  FIFA Club World Cup, FIFA Intercontinental Cup).
- Brazil's state championships of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul.

## All-time top 20 (all competitions, 1872-2026)

1. Real Madrid (Spain) -- Success 732.8, Efficiency 42.7%
2. FC Barcelona (Spain) -- Success 581.5, Efficiency 36.1%
3. Bayern Munich (Germany) -- Success 438.9, Efficiency 33.7%
4. Liverpool (England) -- Success 425.4, Efficiency 26.2%
5. Manchester United (England) -- Success 369.1, Efficiency 22.6%
6. Juventus (Italy) -- Success 352.0, Efficiency 26.0%
7. AC Milan (Italy) -- Success 320.9, Efficiency 26.8%
8. Internazionale (Italy) -- Success 305.2, Efficiency 23.6%
9. Chelsea (England) -- Success 299.2, Efficiency 20.4%
10. Arsenal (England) -- Success 273.6, Efficiency 17.5%
11. Manchester City (England) -- Success 264.3, Efficiency 18.9%
12. Atlético de Madrid (Spain) -- Success 251.4, Efficiency 19.2%
13. SL Benfica (Portugal) -- Success 244.5, Efficiency 19.7%
14. Ajax (Netherlands) -- Success 237.6, Efficiency 19.5%
15. FC Porto (Portugal) -- Success 237.2, Efficiency 20.2%
16. Paris Saint-Germain (France) -- Success 237.1, Efficiency 27.7%
17. Boca Juniors (Argentina) -- Success 226.3, Efficiency 33.1%
18. River Plate (Argentina) -- Success 221.4, Efficiency 29.8%
19. Celtic (Scotland) -- Success 219.7, Efficiency 17.1%
20. Rangers (Scotland) -- Success 218.8, Efficiency 19.3%

## Pages

- [Rankings](https://gloryhunt.football/#rankings): every country's clubs ranked, any period, domestic or international.
- [Danger Zone](https://gloryhunt.football/#danger): all clubs of all countries in one ranking.
- [Compare clubs](https://gloryhunt.football/#compare): two clubs head to head, or a bracket guessing game.
- [Methodology](https://gloryhunt.football/#method): the method step by step, with every judgment call stated.
- [Terms](https://gloryhunt.football/terms): what may be quoted and reused.

## Citing

Please cite as "GloryHunt, all-time club ranking (gloryhunt.football)". Figures move when
the data is renewed; quote the season they refer to. Underlying data: RSSSF (the
Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation, with attribution), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0),
Wikidata (CC0), openfootball (public domain).

## Optional

- [Full text](https://gloryhunt.football/llms-full.txt): the method in full, the top 100, each country's top 10, common questions.