I was reading the "Tottenham a top-20 club in Europe" argument in the GS and here's a question:

Place the following 10 clubs in order from the largest to the smallest as you see them. You can base your rankings on some stats, like revenue, trophies, attendance or whatever, if you wish, but basically just rank them as you just feel right.

In alphabetical order:
Ajax
AS Roma
Celtic
Galatasaray
Marseille
Napoli
Porto
Tottenham
Valencia
Werder Bremen


If it feels too difficult ranking them all, maybe you can put them in 2-3 categories.

Ajax
Roma
Valencia
Porto
Tottenham
Napoli
Marseilles
Celtic
Werder
Gala

Put Werder at the very bottom, then you have one sorting problem less. They are nowhere near their big time when they were able to reach the CL still.

AS Roma
Porto
Valencia
Werder Bremen
Napoli
Marseille
Ajax
Tottenham
Celtic
Galatasaray

Whoever doesn't have Ajax at top of the list doesn't know anything about football.

Ajax >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Agreed, Ajax has nothing to do with the rest and hardly I would put AS Roma in 1st place. It' s the only European club between all these to not have won an European cup  if  the Fairs Cup isn't considered indeed official

Ajax are a european giant. One of the biggest clubs in world football. Offensive to even put them on this list.

I wanted to have some past vs present competition.

Ajax nor the Dutch league are as relevant as they used to be. It's almost 20 years since Ajax won the Champions League, the last Dutch club to do that. In 2014 Ajax are a selling club who rarely spend more than €5m on purchasing of a single player, no matter how much they've made in fees receivable. If you want to look only at history, then sure, Ajax have four European Cups and they're the most successful out of this lot, but by no means they are the kind of power they used to be.

Personally I wouldn't put Ajax at the top of the list.

@RWO, I also wouldn't put Bremen on the bottom, it's not too long ago they were battling for the top spots in Bundesliga and won it 10 years ago. Sure they've been solidly in mid-table for some years now, but they're a biggish club in Germany and in my book that should compare OK with some top clubs in smaller leagues. I would say Bremen are bigger than Galatasaray and maybe Celtic, although Celtic's Irish connection adds some size to them that's a little difficult to estimate.

Well, Werder Bremen are currently closer to the relegation spots than to any better spots, and they are losing players even to teams that are in the lower echelons. BTW, I guess you maybe should have added the HSV to your list, too, but they are in even bigger turmoil.

I wanted to keep the list to 10 clubs, chose Bremen out of a few candidates from Germany.

I think the Bundesliga's financial sensibility combined with Germany's large population and football's popularity (so there are sizeable fan bases for many clubs) produces a league which for large parts is very evenly matched. As far as I know, clubs in Bundesliga rarely go for sudden spending sprees that create distance between them, like Valencia, for example, did in Spain (and are now in huge debts). Therefore looking at league positions in Bundesliga to determine the size of clubs there doesn't apply to Germany quite as much as to many other leagues, imo. The playing field is just so evenly matched, apart from the few who can said to be clearly bigger.

That's true - especially as even sizeable clubs can get relegated here - you only need to look at 1.FC Köln.

yes Hamburg would have been ideal more than Weder for me too, it is the only German club never relegated ( so far....) besides to have won 1 Champions League in 1983

Ajax a "european giant"

Ajax are a poor version of what they once were but IMO they are still 'bigger' as in more well known and have given more to football than the rest of the teams on the list which is why I placed them first.