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Real Madrid leapfrogged Barcelona into top spot in the Euro Club Index

Real Madrid have been crowned the best team in Europe for a record 12th time - and won the trophy for the third time in four years.

So how do the rest compare?

According to a European club ranking list by sports data company Gracenote, only two English clubs - Premier League champions Chelsea (7th) and Manchester City (8th) - place among the top 10 sides on the continent.

Chelsea overtook Pep Guardiola's side as the highest Premier League side despite not being in Europe this season.

Zinedine Zidane's Madrid side, who also won La Liga, replaced rivals Barcelona at the top of Gracenote's Euro Club Index.

FA Cup winners Arsenal (11th) dropped out of the top 10, but remain above north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur (13th).

Leicester City, the last remaining English club in the Champions League before being knocked out of the quarter-finals by Atletico Madrid, were 48th, and Europa League champions Manchester United 16th.

The rankings are produced from results over the past four seasons, but the most recent campaign carries a weight of around two-thirds.

'Liverpool perform like West Brom'

Mauricio Pochettino guided his Spurs side to second in the Premier League this season as the White Hart Lane outfit finished above Arsenal for the first time in 22 years.

But it is the Gunners who occupy a higher spot in the list despite finishing fifth and missing out on a Champions League spot for the first time in manager Arsene Wenger's 21-year reign.

"There is very little difference between Arsenal and Tottenham in terms of rating points on the ranking," said head of analysis at Gracenote Simon Gleave.

"Arsenal's consistency over the past seasons means that they have remained above Tottenham.

"But another season like this one and Spurs will overtake."

Liverpool (19th) also rank lower than Arsenal and 16th-placed Manchester United, despite Jurgen Klopp's side finishing higher in English football's top flight last term.

Gleave says the Reds' ranking reflects their domestic inconsistency over the past four seasons especially against "smaller" clubs.

"Basically, under Klopp, Liverpool performs at the level of a Premier League champion in matches against the big clubs, but at the level of West Bromwich Albion against the rest," he added.

Bournemouth were the most improved Premier League club, rising from 122nd to 97th in the list, while Sunderland dropped from 104th to 185th.

How does it work?

Teams collect or lose points depending on the result of each match, both domestically - including cup competitions - and in Europe, but the amount of points depends on the gulf between the two sides.

For example, a home Chelsea win against Sunderland is worth very few points, in contrast to a Crystal Palace away win at Stamford Bridge.

There is an extra bonus for an entire league if one of its clubs performs well in Europe.

Which country ranks best?

Predictably, Spain's La Liga remains Europe's strongest competition, ahead of Germany's Bundesliga and England's Premier League.

However, while La Liga may boast the Euro Club Index's top two, with Atletico Madrid in fourth, it is the Bundesliga that provides the most teams in the top 100 with 16.

Three of those - Bayern Munich (3rd) and Borussia Dortmund (9th), Hoffenheim (23rd) - are in the top 25, and it was Bundesliga runners-up RB Leipzig who gained more Euro Club Index rating points (702) than any other club this season and moved up 142 places to 58th.

"The league is stronger than the other big leagues in terms of depth of quality in its clubs," explains Gleave.

"The Bundesliga's 16th best club on the ranking, Hamburger SV, is ranked 82nd in Europe for example whereas the 16th best in the Premier League Burnley is 116th."

French champions AS Monaco, meanwhile, improved the most of any team beginning the season in Europe's top-100, climbing to 12th from 40th with a 578 point improvement.

Juventus's Champions League final defeat saw them lose 25 points and slip one place to fifth below Atletico Madrid.