Following a 4-0 victory over Real Madrid at the FIFA Club World Cup, Paris Saint-Germain knocked Liverpool off the top of the Opta Power Rankings. We take a closer look at the fluent French side.
Paris Saint-Germain are the best men’s football team in the world.
Yes, we know they still have to get past Chelsea in Sunday’s FIFA Club World Cup final to officially be crowned world champions, but the Opta Power Rankings don’t need that to place PSG top of the charts.
Following their 4-0 thrashing of Real Madrid in Wednesday’s semi-final at MetLife Stadium, Luis Enrique’s side leapfrogged Liverpool into first place in the Opta Power Rankings.
For those unaware, the Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 10,000 men’s domestic football teams and over 2,000 women’s domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Liverpool went top in late November and pretty much stayed there until Wednesday, when PSG took over. Winning a treble comprising Ligue 1, the Coupe de France and UEFA Champions League as well as reaching the Club World Cup final has been enough for them to go top of the global rankings.
Their latest stunning performance saw Fabián Ruiz score a brace either side of an Ousmane Dembélé goal to put PSG 3-0 up inside 24 minutes as Xabi Alonso’s men were punished for sloppy errors and looked stunned by the time the first cooling break came around on the half hour.
The second half saw the Ligue 1 giants ease off, presumably conserving energy for the final, but they still kept former player Kylian Mbappé and company at bay with relative ease.
Gonçalo Ramos came off the bench to add a late fourth as a crowd in New Jersey largely consisting of Madrid fans just stared in disbelief, their team’s Club World Cup hopes disappearing in spectacular fashion.
Alonso can take solace in the fact his team were taken apart by the best in the world, at least according to the Opta Power Rankings.
It was far from the first impressive showing from PSG in recent times. Dating back to the Coupe de France final, they have won their last five knockout matches in all competitions by a combined score of 18-0. That includes their historic 5-0 win over Inter in the UEFA Champions League final in May, the biggest margin of victory in a European Cup/Champions League final, plus the 3-0 defeat of Reims 3-0 in the Coupe de France final, a 4-0 thrashing of Inter Miami in the last 16 of the Club World Cup, a 2-0 success over Bayern Munich in the quarters, and the comfortable win over Madrid.
Dembélé’s goal and assist took him to 30 goal involvements (22 goals, 8 assists) in 23 starts in all competitions in 2025, with many believing he will be this year’s recipient of the prestigious Ballon d’Or award.
It was very much a team effort, though, and PSG dominated the ball, with Real Madrid’s 32.2% possession their lowest in any match since having only 31.2% of the ball vs Barcelona in an April 2021 La Liga game.
They also dominated the physical battle, winning 13 of 16 aerial duels and recording 11 tackles to Madrid’s four.
Full disclosure, following their 4-0 win over Atlético Madrid in their first game of the Club World Cup, PSG did actually spend a single day top of the Opta Power Rankings last month. Unfortunately for them, it was the day before they lost 1-0 to Botafogo, so when the rankings were updated, they slipped back down to third. That was the first time they had ever been top of the rankings, though.
Wins over Seattle Sounders, Inter Miami, Bayern and Madrid have seen them claw their way back to first, and if they can see off Chelsea – who are ranked eighth in the world – in the final, PSG will enjoy a much longer spell at the summit this time.
It’s interesting to look back at their rankings across the last 10 years. Rather a lot has happened in the French capital in that time, including managerial reigns of Laurent Blanc, Unai Emery, Thomas Tuchel, Mauricio Pochettino, Christophe Galtier and Luis Enrique. There have also been plenty of big-name/big-money signings, most notably the attacking trio of Neymar, Mbappé and Lionel Messi.
As you can see, though, while there have been ups and downs – albeit during a time of many domestic league titles and cups – the hiring of Luis Enrique and the departure of those three gigantic names has coincided with PSG’s rise to the top of world football in the last year.
That’s not to say those players were detrimental to PSG in the time they were at the club. Neymar scored 118 goals in 173 games for the club, while Messi managed 32 in 75 and Mbappé 212 in 260.
However, there is no denying that the team built by Luis Enrique has become a more well-rounded machine than it was when those superstars led the attack. Perhaps the assumption one of that trio would always produce magic led to the rest of the team subconsciously taking them for granted, but this PSG are a fluid team from back to front, with plenty of strength off the bench as well. Whatever they’re doing, it’s working.
How long will they spend at the summit of the Opta Power Rankings? That remains to be seen, but watching PSG in full flow of late gives anyone the impression we’ll be seeing plenty more of them at the top of the tree. Win on Sunday, and they will indeed become champions of the world.
We don’t need the Club World Cup to tell us PSG are now the best team on the planet, though…
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PSG Are the Best Team in the World: Parisians Top Opta Power Rankings After Thrashing Real Madrid Opta Analyst.
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