Intrinsic Classes in the Union of European Football Associations Soccer Team Ranking

Abstract: A strong structural regularity of classes is found in soccer teams ranked by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for the time interval 2009-2014. It concerns 424 to 453 teams according to the 5 competition seasons. The analysis is based on the rank-size theory considerations, the size being the UEFA coefficient at the end of a season. Three classes emerge: (i) the few "top" teams, (ii) 300 teams, (iii) the rest of the involved teams (about 150) in the tail of the distribution. There are marked empirical laws describing each class. A 3-parameter Lavalette function is used to describe the concave curving as the rank increases, and to distinguish the the tail from the central behavior.