I wish I could count on Chepo to make that his criteria, but then if that were the case, Vela would get regular call-ups and Edson Rivera wouldn't have been a past target of being kept off the N.T. (and with media attention still being given consideration for our mighty youth teams only)... It was weird that they sent starter at the Gold Cup Gio to the Copa America, none of the rest from the Gold Cup, Luis Michel who has been overlooked as a GK for the NT even as a backup, Aguilar... They all looked bad. None of Chepo's favorites got called this time like they do off and on for the Gold Cup? No Duenas this time? No Oribe Peralta that time? No De Nigris when Vela wasn't available? I thought De Nigris was the back up for La Seleccion when they don't want to call Vela? They overdid it with their politics. THAT's why it was the worst result in history, not just because of CONCACAF. I was excited to see the main young stars before the little scandal... then we don't even get to see them play because according to various reporting sources someone from the FMF was bringing girls to their rooms who stole at their hotel... ugh, I hope someone from the FMF was finally made accountable. It's too often just put on the easy targets, individual players (especially young ones) who can't take on the mighty FMF... worse from what I've read about players who try to unionize their league... but MAYBE the FMF really just picked players for the Copa America without considering bias or politics... (that's not what I believe though).
Peralta was at the Copa America. but the reason we couldn't send a better alternate, possibly non-Euro, team to the Copa America was because CONCACRAP made us send a Sub-22 to serve as a preparation for the Olympics. i do agree though that the 5 backup players were pretty questionable. aside from Michel, the other 4 had limited international experience or had already been called up before to the NT but performed poorly.
Woops, my mistake, must not have noticed him since nobody scored a goal except Araujo, I guess CONCACAF should share the blame as is the standard reason given, so let them take some of the heat too. But who is satisfied with the squad sent to Copa America? That was crappy and the team's going to need to do really well in 2013 to get good positioning ahead of the world cup. I don't think they should be completely off the hook. I am glad to see Michel and Gio start at games, though, and I'll have to give them credit for throwing Peralta to the wolves and CONMEBOL too.
Technically the restriction was a U-23; +5 team, the FMF made the decision (correctly IMO) to make it a Sub-22; +5 to prepare for the Olympics next year. I personally would have just taken a bunch of 20-22 year old's down there take the lumps and get ready to avoid a repeat of last Olympic qualifying
smh japan 19 tho lol? you know what would be a pretty boss fifa friendly format...if during fifa dates you either had to play a team above you or below you to either keep your rank or take the rank of the guy above you... Ideally you would get really close matchups and teams would actually play for something per say.
I do believe very few FIFA dates are for actual friendly games (well there are more right before the World cup) but from say the summer after the World cup to November the year before the World cup, there is usually some federation playing some tournament or Elimination game. So while Mexico at say 19th may have an open FIFA date, Japan at 20th may be playing an elimination game and the 18th team may be playing the Conmebol or Eurocopa elimination game.
might come off as stupid and if so i really don't know about this... but... is the Olympics more important then the copa america?? like FIFA RANKING WISE. If not then WTF :/
Because CONCACAF didn´t really give a shit about the olympics, that was just their excuse to force Mexico to send their A team to the Gold Cup by forcing them to send a sub 22 to Copa America.
Greece is only an example to ilustrate that there are some other teams more deserving to be in the top 20. If you are offended then..Tough and I don't need your advice to change my mind about this FIFA ranking.
Ditto. Fifa should just make the Elo rankings the official FIFA rankings. Women's soccer uses an ELO system, why not men's?
Because FIFA runs the football world quite literally, and they can choose to what they please. The only thing we need to worry about with the FIFA rankings is staying top of the CONCACAF region.
we have to kick major ass in ALL our WC qualifying games and have a great showing in Confed Cup to even be considered for a possible WC seed
Are you saying this as a challenge or as an opportunity? I mainly agree with what you are saying, given that 50% of the FIFA ranking points are from the previous 12 months (and another 25% from 12-24 months out), but since we are in Concacaf and could conceivably play 8 games at the Azteca and 8 games against "lesser" competition on the road, I see this as an opportunity to boost our standing. If we fall to the usual road woes, well then we don't deserve the seeding. The real key is to not water down our average points per game by playing all the partidos moleros. [as an aside, given the average points approach, if we expect to lose in the Confederations semis, we could be better off doing decent in the group stage, but not qualifying to the semis, than qualifying to semis and having a 0 point game (loss) averaged in with the other games in 2013, but that's gaming the system too much.] This is, of course, assuming FIFA uses a similar approach to the 2010 seeding, which we won't know.
i'm saying this as an opportunity we have a much stronger team this time around compared to the last two cycles. we have to take every CONCACAF opponent serious like we did in the Gold Cup this past summer and not sink down to their level
Here's a reference point for how the seedings are shaping up so far for the WC (if FIFA uses the Oct 2013 rankings for seeds). As mentioned before, 2012 and 2013 results are weighted more heavily, and will be dominated by qualifiers and continental cup matches. Brazil is safe as host, but will likewise drop in the rankings because beside the Confed they'll be strictly playing friendlies. http://www.football-rankings.info/2011/12/2014-fifa-world-cup-seeding-update-9.html
We stayed 21st in the January Fifa rankings http://www.mediotiempo.com/futbol/s...1/18/mexico-esta-en-la-posicion-21-de-la-fifa