If there wasnÆt enough soccer already, the 1999-2000 season marked the debut of the FIFA Club World Championship and a expanded Champions League. HereÆs our European Top 10, taking into account play throughout the calendar year.

Real Madrid tops European soccer

Power within European soccer is increasingly concentrated among a few countries.

With the exception of Turkish club Galatasaray, all the teams in our European Top 10 came from the big four: Spain, Italy, England and Germany.

1. REAL MADRID. Who says money canÆt buy success? Real Madrid went hundreds of millions of dollars in debt buying players but came out on top.

Real Madrid won its record eighth European Cup title, defeating Valencia, 3-0, in the 2000 Champions League final, one of the most lopsided finals in recent memory.

Real marched through Europe, overcoming all sorts of obstacles. Welsh coach John Toshack was fired in mid-season, and his successor, Vicente Del Bosque, had a standoff with young French star Nicolas Anelka.

If Anelka didnÆt want to train, he didnÆt have to. He was suspended.

The suspension was lifted just in time for him to help lead Real Madrid past Manchester United and Bayern Munich, the 1999 European Cup finalists, into the 2000 final.

The offseason saw Anelka move on. So did influential midfielder Fernando Redondo.

In their place arrived Portuguese star Luis Figo ù signed for a world record $56.1 million transfer fee.

Real Madrid ended the year with the best record (6-1-1 after eight games) in the group phase of the 2000-01 Champions League.

It will be the favorite next spring.

2. GALATASARAY. No Turkish club had ever won a European title before this year. Galatasaray won two European titles in 2000. It beat Arsenal on penalty kicks to take the UEFA Cup and edged Real Madrid, 2-1, in overtime to take the preseason European Super Cup in Monaco. It also won the Turkish league and cup titles, giving it four in 2000. Galatasaray relies heavily on its colony of Romanians (Gheorghe Hagi and Gheorghe Popescu) and Brazilians (Carlos Taffarel and Mario Jardel), giving it the experience it will need to go far in the Champions League next year.

3. VALENCIA. Surely the surprise of the 2000 season. Valencia ambushed Lazio (5-2) and Barcelona (4-1) at home in the first leg of their Champions League series and advanced to the final against Real Madrid. Valencia lost midfielders Gerard (Barcelona) and Francisco Farinos (Inter Milan) and striker Claudio Lopez (Lazio) during the summer, but that hasnÆt stopped Hector CuperÆs team. Valencia is tied for first place in the Spanish league and has the second best record in the group phase of the 2000-01 Champion League.

4. LAZIO. An Italian double (Serie A and Coppa) should count for something. After all, the Italian First Division, at least teams 1-10, remains the best league in the world. Unfortunately, Lazio was upset by Valencia in the quarterfinals of the 2000 Champions League and may not make the quarterfinals in 2001. Swede Sven Goran ErikssonÆs decision to leave at the end of the season to take the England national team coaching job has hit Lazio hard. Billionaire owner Sergio Cragnotti isnÆt happy.

5. BAYERN MUNICH. The Bavarians desperately wanted to win the Champions League title that Manchester United took from them in stoppage time in 1999. They instead had to settle for a German double ù an improbable double at that! Bayern edged Bayer Leverkusen on goal difference, winning the Bundesliga title on the last day of the season when Munich neighbor Unterhaching upset Leverkusen.

6. MANCHESTER UNITED. After winning the triple in 1998-99, United was due for a fall. It withdrew from the FA Cup to play in the inaugural FIFA Club World Championship, but it only managed to win once in three games. Its Champions League title defense ended when Real Madrid won, 3-2, at Old Trafford. But thereÆs always the Premier League. It won the 1999-2000 title by 18 points and has already opened up a six-point lead at the halfway mark in 2000-01.

7. DEPORTIVO CORUNA. No one had heard of Deportivo a decade ago, but President Augusto Lendeiro has built the Galician club into one of the strongest in Europe. It won the 1999-2000 Spanish league title and is tied with Valencia for the lead this season. Coach Javier Irureta relies heavily on foreigners, 18 in all: seven from Brazil, four from Argentina, two from Portugal and one each from Cameroon, Morocco, the Netherlands, Uruguay and Yugoslavia.

8. ARSENAL. The Gunners had to settle for second to Manchester United in the Premier League and Galatasaray in the UEFA Cup. They spent heavily in the offseason to make another run at United and challenge in Europe. Arsenal is six points behind United at the halfway point in the Premiership. The Gunners face an uphill battle to reach the quarterfinals in the Champions League.

9. JUVENTUS. Juve had a two-point lead on Lazio with one game left but lost its bid for a record 26th Scudetto when it fell to Perugia, 1-0, in the pouring rain. ItÆs already out of Europe, self-destructing with a flurry of red cards in the first phase of the Champions League.

10. BAYER LEVERKUSEN. Another team that knows something about late collapses. It lost the Bundesliga title to Bayern on the last day of the season, marking the third time in four years it has finished second. ItÆs already had three coaches ù Christoph Daum, Rudi Voeller and Berti Vogts ù this season but finds itself in first place as the winter break approaches.

by Soccer America managing editor Paul Kennedy