Alright, so this whole african club ranking thing started because, well, I was just curious. You hear names thrown around, you see some highlights, but I wanted to get a clearer picture, you know? Not just go by what some pundit said last week.
Getting Started – The Usual Mess
First thing I did, naturally, was hit the internet. Figured there’d be tons of comprehensive rankings out there. And sure, there are lists, but man, they’re all over the place. Some seemed outdated, others clearly biased, or they just didn’t explain how they even got their numbers. It was a bit of a letdown, honestly. It’s like trying to find a decent recipe online; everyone swears theirs is the best, but the ingredients are all different.
I remember a while back, I was trying to fix this leaky faucet in my bathroom. Watched about ten different videos, each one showing a slightly different method. Ended up making a bigger mess before I finally figured it out. This felt a bit like that – lots of noise, not much signal.
My Approach – Keep it Simple (ish)
So, I decided, fine, I’ll try to make my own. I didn’t want to get bogged down in super complex algorithms that nobody understands. My main thought was to look at actual performance in major continental competitions. Stuff like the CAF Champions League and the CAF Confederation Cup seemed like the obvious places to start. Winning those, or even going deep, has to count for a lot, right?
I also thought about domestic league strength, but that’s a whole other can of worms. How do you compare the Egyptian Premier League to, say, the South African Premier Division directly and fairly for every single club? Too complicated for what I was trying to do, which was just a general, current power ranking.
The Nitty-Gritty – Data, Data, Data
Then came the actual work. This was the tedious part. I started pulling up results from the last few seasons. I’m talking group stage results, knockout rounds, finals. I made a big old spreadsheet. For each competition, I decided to award points: so many for a win, fewer for a draw, bonus points for advancing to the next stage, and obviously a big chunk for winning the whole thing.
I had to be careful, making sure I got the right teams, the right scores. Sometimes the data sources weren’t perfectly clear, or names were spelled differently. It was a bit like detective work. I spent a good few evenings just entering data, cross-checking things. My wife even asked if I was planning an actual trip based on football schedules, I was that engrossed.
- Collected results from recent CAF Champions League seasons.
- Collected results from recent CAF Confederation Cup seasons.
- Assigned points for wins, draws, and progression.
- Weighted more recent seasons slightly higher, because form changes, you know?
Putting It All Together
Once all the data was in, it was just a matter of tallying everything up. I created a master list of all the clubs that had participated and started summing their points. It was pretty satisfying to see the numbers finally come together. I sorted them, and bam, there was my ranking.
No huge surprises at the very top, to be honest. The usual big names were up there, which I guess means my system wasn’t completely bonkers. But there were some interesting placements further down. Some clubs I hadn’t paid much attention to actually showed up pretty well consistently. It made me realize how much depth there is.
It’s not perfect, of course. Someone else could use a different points system and get a different order. And it doesn’t capture things like historical legacy or fanbase size, which also matter to people. But for a snapshot of recent continental performance, I reckon it’s a decent effort. It scratched that itch I had, anyway. It’s funny, this whole thing started from a simple curiosity, and it reminds me of when I was a kid, meticulously cataloging my football sticker collection. Some things never change, eh? Just the tools get a bit more advanced than a scrapbook and glue.
