Who are the best team in the world, right now - either club or national?
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t's certainly going to be a club, and I'd figure most people would say either Bayern or Barca; Real Madrid and Chelsea probably would get some mentions by some, and maybe Man City too. Funny enough, all have new managers.
That was my broader question - but I was curious how one of the top national sides matched up against a team like Barca, RM, Bayern, etc.
It's very much open to debate, but typically the best side in the world will be a club team, with some great national sides interspersed. The club teams have players all year every year and they gel in ways that the international teams simply can't. Not coincidentally, a lot of the top national teams that you could argue were the best in the world at a given point typically had/have a lot of players who were also playing together for club teams, an example arguably being Spain over the last four years with its heavy Barcelona influence, or the Dutch "total football" team which was centered around a core of players out of Ajax.
In the last 20 years the only international sides worth mentioning as the best would be Spain of the last 4-5 years and France circa 1998-2000. Even they, however, had holes and flaws.
My list above focused on clubs only after my initial comment that it would have to be a club team, but that Spanish side would have to be in the top 3.