(posting here because the UCL subreddit thinks my account is "too young" to be posting on that subreddit)
For me the biggest club should be a mix of "most trophies" + "most consistent".
On "most trophies" there is no debate, Real Madrid followed by Milan/Bayern/Liverpool/Barça etc.
But "most consistent"? It's incredible how much of these clubs' power reside in "clustered" winning cycles but have not necessarily been consistent over time!
Real Madrid: 5 wins right at the start of the tournament (different rules, way less clubs and competition) and 6 wins during the CR7 and the post-CR7 era. That means that Real Madrid won "only" four times between 1961 and 2002, with an actual 32 year gap between 1966 and 1998!
Milan: 2 wins in the 60s, and 5 in 18 years during the Berlusconi era.
Bayern: 3 consecutive in the 70s, the others more distributed
Liverpool: 3 consecutive in the 70s/80s (4 in 8 years)
Barcelona: 1 in 1992, then 4 in just 10 years, then nothing
Ajax: 3 consecutive in the 70s, then 1995
Not really a question, more just an observation. There is no team that has been consistently in the top. Real is in the clear for total trophies but the gap is not small, Liverpool and Bayern built most of their legacy in the 70s, Milan is a more recent phenomenon, Barça's European history is actually even younger than some of us, they really owe their current reputation to Messi Xavi and Iniesta (and Eto'o and Dinho)😄
submitted by /u/AndyDiouf2003[link] [comments]