How can you drop in the rankings without playing a game? These rankings suck . http://www.fifa.com/rank/index_E.html The top 10 Fifa rankings for October (last month's rankings in brackets) 1 (1) Brazil 2 (2) France 3 (2) Spain 4 (4) Germany 5 (5) Argentina 6= (9) England 6= (6) Mexico 8 (7) Turkey 9 (12) Netherlands 10 (8) United States
OMfreakingG!!! we should to top mexico for sure! We should be close to germany...we know our team can make them suffer!! cant believe these rankings
England and the Netherlands the two teams behind us that leapfrogged us have played at least one, if not two European Qualifiers. That is why they jumped us. We didn't lose points (although we might have played a friendly by now four years ago and it would phase off of our stats) they just gained them.
It makes sense if you consider the algorithm that generates these rankings. Over time really old games drop out of the equation entirely and more recent games are weighted differently. So you don't have to play a game to have your rankings change.
Re: Re: New FIFA Rankings Should I have put a after both sentences? The entire introduction to these rankings was sarcasm, as we have been over this ad nauseum.
Is it that time of the month again? Mexico remained ahead because they got a super coach and that automatically keeps them ahead of the USA. I really don't care, because we still spanked the hell out of them in the world cup and for my money that counts a lot more than the silly monthly poll. So rank the USA at #20 or #156 or #2, it changes nothing.
Anyone find it odd that we have moved around several times because we haven't played a game since the WC, yet Mexico has pretty much stayed put?? Have they played since then??
Maybe not, but having qualified for the WC for the last 4 tournaments, finished in the knockout phase of two of them, including a finish in the final 8 of the most recent (remember being 8th is being is the top 10) gives a pretty good basis. I'm sure there are 10 teams in the world that are better than the US but if there are, then I'm sure there are 11 better than Mexico.
I like the US team and all, but we are not a top 10 program yet. The US can compete with the top ten, but we will not consistantly beat most of those nations. The US more or less belongs around number 16 in my opinion, but the US should be ahead of Mexico. That may happen after next summer's Gold Cup.
Name ten teams that are clearly better than us. Here's my list: Netherlands, Spain, Germany Italy, France, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina. That's 8. I'm not sure you can say that there are two more teams in the world who clearly should be ranked above us. So, sorry Kasai. The U.S. has not joined the giants of international football, it may be at or near the top of the second rung. Maybe your Iran will join the second rung one of these days, certainly hasn't yet though.
Interesting. It seems that reaching the quarter finals proves that the US is a top 8 team, but doesn't prove that any of the other 7 quarter finalists are top 8 teams. Reaching the semi-finals, as S.Korea & Turkey did is clearly less of an achievement than losing in the quarters as nobody here is rating those two nations.
I used to consider rankings particularly irrelevant at the start of a new World Cup cycle, when teams begun to rebuild. Conversely, rankings used to be interesting to me before a World Cup (or continental championship), as they were supposed to give some clue as to what to expect in those games. The better the rankings, the more accurate a barometer they served in that regard. Or so I thought. Obviously, however, no ranking system figured France failing to win a game, or even score a goal, in the last World Cup. No ranking system, in the same vain, would have put Holland so low to see them fail even to qualify for that tournament. Yet, many share my belief that both Holland and France were among the top teams in the world regardless of those notable failures. Conversely, success in one tournament alone is not for me, and from my vantage point, the real barameter of how good or poor a team is -- although such success definitely should and does figure in the equation, the same way such failure cannot be entirely written off either. Anyway, I used to like ranking teams. But I can't for the life of me know how to do so now. The side that would have ranked top of the UEFA ladder, France, did poorly in the World Cup. The next best side in Europe by my estimation, Holland, did not even qualify for the tournament. Germany, on the other hand, finished second in the World Cup as UEFA's best performer despite a record that was not very impressive in the 1998-2002 cycle. It was largely the same story in Conembol, Africa, and Asia. In Conembol, Argentina would have topped the Conembol rankings before the World Cup, but they had a dismal tournament when it counted the most. Conversely, Brazil emerged from a series of poor results to win the top prize! Similarly, in Asia, Iran -- ranked on top in Asia by FIFA and many others -- failed to even qualify as one of the 4 representatives for the AFC. Conversely, the two sides -- excepting the cohosts - that did qualify, brought back with them a record that was as dismal as it could get. 6 losses, 0 goals scored, 21 goals allowed. Of these two sides, one (China) has been regularly defeated by Iran by good margins, the last time 4:0, and has been ranked lower than Iran for a long time. The other, Saudi Arabia, qualified ahead of Iran despite losing the head to head battle by the aggregate score of 4:2. At the end, I have reached the conclusion that no ranking system is even remotely good, much less perfect. Lets settle on one, as arbitrary as it might seem, only cognizant that the answers it gives aren't worth much anyway.