The Curse of Anfield might finally be in the past. Sunday's epic 4-2 comeback win at Atletico Madrid pushed Barcelona back into first place in the LaLiga table and kept Hansi Flick's squad unbeaten across all competitions in 2025. ESPN BET currently lists them as the favorites to win LaLiga and the Champions League. They've already won the Spanish Super Cup in 2025, and they're still alive in the semifinals of the Copa del Rey.
A four-trophy season is within reach, and in the world of club soccer, perhaps only PSG is in better form than Barcelona at the moment.
Barca's current Elo rating at ClubElo.com is as high as it's been since May 7, 2019. That's the day they took a three-goal lead to Liverpool in the Champions League semifinals and left with a 4-0 loss. (Elo ratings basically amount to a point exchange. Beat a lesser opponent, and you take a few points from them; beat a better opponent, and you take more.)
In 2018-19, Barca headed to Anfield with a chance to win four trophies. They have only won three since. But despite themselves -- despite constantly spending money they don't have, despite only hiring Flick after begging Xavi to remain the manager and then basically firing him for being pessimistic -- they have put together an utterly thrilling team to watch. Just as he did in his first season at Bayern Munich (when the German giants won their last Champions League title), Flick has brought an immediate jolt of passion and energy, and it looks great on Barca.
With its attacking, pressing, extreme ball control and a high defensive line that usually dominates but occasionally suffers chaotic glitches, Flick's style of play is spectacularly fun to watch. In fact, it has made Barca the most watchable team in European soccer.
OK, you've figured out where this is going: It's time for the annual Watchability rankings! For years now, I've been applying numbers to aesthetics, using a combination of stats that measure quality, scoring prowess, defensive intensity, verticality, switches and through-balls, match tension and openness against good teams to gauge who the most enjoyable teams in Europe are.
Oh, and this season, I've added "performance while trailing" to the watchability machine as well. There's nothing more watchable than a good comeback, right?
Beginning last season, I applied a similar algorithm to individual matches to look at the most entertaining single games of a given year. You already know that Barca ranks No. 1 on the teams list, but let's dive into everything else.