USA STILL in 6th in FIFA Rankings

[mickhayafe]

are you kidding me, with all that hype about overtaking Mexico, what a let down.

http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/index/0,2548,All-Aug-2005,00.html

1 Brazil 0 837 -9
2 Argentina 0 782 -5
3 Netherlands 0 780 -1
4 Czech Republic 0 777 -1
5 Mexico 0 770 2
6 USA 0 768 3
7 England 1 743 -1
8 Spain 0 739 -5
9 France -2 737 -12
9 Portugal 1 737 -2

[Sanguine]

Interestingly, the US and Mexico were the only teams in the top 20 to gain points this rating period.

[PaulGascoigne]

Hopefully we can move up to #5 easily enough--by beating #5 in Columbus. # 2 is all the more tantalizingly close by several points. God, even if we just hit it for a month, what delicious outcry you would hear... :D

(and yes, I know the rankings are "meaningless")

[superdave]

We must have had some good results de-weighted.

[mickhayafe]

We must have had some good results de-weighted.

Also, the win over Germany in the 1999 Confederations Cup, one of the USA's best results in the ranking formula in the whole 8-year ranking period, is downgraded this month.

I'm sure we'll get alot of speculation about why we didn't go up nearly as much as people thought

[dogbyte]

The rankings are a joke, but they line up really fun behind us now.

Oh, we are 6th, right in front of England, Spain, France, Portugal, Turkey, and Italy.

The only serious part of this is seeding. If we go on a good run of form especially beating Mexico, and Holland flames out, we do have a serious shot at a seeding. Does anybody have a link to that seeding thread btw?

[doogiemo]

Does anybody have a link to that seeding thread btw?

here ya go!

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=221854

[Roehl Sybing]

We're going to sweep every game at the World Cup by three goals each!

[VioletCrown]

We must have had some good results de-weighted.

That's the only thing I can think. It sure looks crazy to have jumped up 20+ last time with first round Gold Cup wins, and then only get 3 for winning out the rest of the games -- presumably more important games.

I guess it wasn't very helpful playing lowly Panama in the final. And not really beating them.

[Gary V]

We must have had some good results de-weighted.
Looks like a lot of teams did. First off, there were only 24 games played that added into the equations.

So we look at what happened in July-Aug over the last 8 years. Without a database like FIFA's it's only speculation on my part.

Any WCQ played in 1997 (for WC'98) dropped off the table completely. Any WCQ played in 2001 (for WC'02) lost 20% of their value, going from 5/8 to 4/8 weighting. Probably another bunch of good games in other years that must have dropped in weighting as well. (Aside: wonder what happened to Uruguay!)

I suspect that for the US in particular, the wins in the Gold Cup weren't part of the top 7 for this year. So while they had a small positive effect (we did gain 3 points), they didn't overcome downgraded weightings of past years.

[Dom. FC]

"Interestingly, the US and Mexico were the only teams in the top 20 to gain points this rating period."

Where did Mexico get +2 from? Was it the plane trip home from the Gold Cup or the loss to Germany (#11 still) in the Confederations Cup Consolation match? Without those 2 points we are tied with them for 5th.

[superdave]

I guess it wasn't very helpful playing lowly Panama in the final. And not really beating them.
Since it was the final, we got credit for a 1 goal win.

If you advance by PKs in an earlier round, it counts as a draw.

Yes, I'm a geek for spending so much time at FIFA.com. Thanks for asking.

[kal-el]

Excellent analysis of the rankings/seeding situation from Grant Wahl:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/grant_wahl/08/17/us.rankings/index.html

[VioletCrown]

Excellent analysis of the rankings/seeding situation from Grant Wahl:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/grant_wahl/08/17/us.rankings/index.html

Almost as good as the one that's been going on for a while on our own boards (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=221854). Nevertheless, always worthwhile to hit the links of SI and Wahl articles to show them some love.:)