In my view its very close between Team Luxembourg, Rabobank and Liquigas. I think Luxembourg edges it in my book.
They've basically got a good part of the core of the formerly strongest team out there, with The Schlecks, The Canc, Fuglsang, Voigt, O'Grady and added some good riders from elsewhere, like Gerdemann, Monfort, Posthuma, Feillu the Younger and one or two more I might've forgotten. Also they're fine on the sprinting front with Bennati and Weylandt. Its a well balanced team and has the ability to seriously compete in any race on the calender. The depth still is a little questionable, and if Luxembourg does get invited to the Giro, I shudder to see what type of team will be sent there, because it wont be pretty.
Rabo, I think, is second strongest. Obviously they lose one of their strongest riders in Menchov, some lesser gods like Nuyens and Posthuma, and one of their best supporting riders in Koos quits the scene. But they've compensated well, and even emerged stronger IMO. With guys like Sanchez, Breschel and Barredo they've added some pizazz to their long stuggling classics squad (and all of those guys can also do good work on a GT squad) and they can also expect some further development of some of their established youngsters like Gesink, Mollema and Kruijswijk to compensate for the loss of climbing talent they've lost with Menchov. Also, the three neo-pros they've added in Matthews, Vermeltfoort and Tom Slagter all show some serious promise, and all three have a serious future in the sport.
Liquigas is 3rd strongest. Even with their frontman Pellizotti having been culled from the squad partway through the season they had a blast this year. But on the whole I think they lose slightly too much talent for comfort. Kreuziger, Kiserlovski, Bennati, Chichi and Quinziato have all flown the coop, while the guys they've got in, with the exception of the promising Damiano Caruso and Eros Capecchi, are uninspiring to say the least. If they'd had a par offseason they'd be top of the list, but now they'll largely be relying on their youngsters, like Sagan, Oss, Guarnieri, and Viviani, to pick up the slack left by departing riders.
As for the rest, HTC has lost way too much talent with only minor additions, and if Goss cannot step up in a big way to fill the shoes left by Greipel they could very well expect to lose their three-year running title of 'most team wins' next year.
Katusha have made a few additions here, suffered a few losses there, generally a rather sleepy transfer period, although they still suffer from the problem, IMO, that they have a lot of good riders, but only two (Rodriguez and Kolobnev) who can pull off a major victory, and this is too few for a major team.
As for Garmin-Cervelo. They've now got fantastic sprinting, fantastic TTing, great classics team, but still are very lacking in the GC rider department. How much can you realistically expect from Martin, Hesjedal or Vande Velde? And le Mevel isn't the answer to that.
Finally, for those saying that Geox should've been short-listed. How strong is Geox really. Because I'm not that impressed yet for a team with supposed €50m coffers. They've got the old Footon team sans Cardoso or Capecchi. Then Geox have added Menchov (quality signing), Sastre (how much can you really expect?), Juan Jose Cobo (good signing), de la Fuente (everyone loves him but he'll win nothing), Fabio Duarte (promising Columbian, but by no means the most promising Columbian out there), Marko Kump (good talent), David Blanco (35 years old), Ardilla (decent domestique but will win nothing) and Kozontchuk (so Menchov can chat with someone). Its a good team. But one of the best? Not in my book.
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