The losses to France and England caused the US to drop to #2, but road wins over Sweden and Norway bumped them back up to #1. And yes, the US did lose to Australia. But at the same time the Australia loss happened, #2 Germany and #3 France were underperforming at the Euros, which cost them ground to the US. You don't seem to be taking into consideration the results of other teams when bashing the ranking system.
The ranking is intended to reflect the strength of the program-- not this year's starting eleven, but the likelihood that a starting eleven in one year's, two year's, five year's time will be in the WC final. If Alabama's tackle football team loses to Clemson in a given year the loss doesn't say all that much about the likelihood the team will be back in the playoff next year, does it? Carolina keeps losing in the College Cup these days-- but they keep getting back there, so they must be doing a lot right... (And the same system is used for both/all National teams, isn't it?)
I should think that a good, relevant NT ranking system would reflect the strength of teams at the present time or in the recent past. That would be the ideal. But, yea there's a problem in that NT's don't play very often--and genuine competition is positively rare. What they do mostly is play friendlies and even then how relevant are the outcomes when teams are trying out new players, or playing 3 matches in 7 days, etc? So in that sense, I suppose, the program--as opposed to the current team's most recent performances--might have some influence. It's a lagging indicator and probably not worth taking too seriously.
No-- it isn't a lagging indicator. It is what the FIFA ranking system is designed to measure. It is what they want to measure. You want to measure something different, fine, go to it. Design your own system and publish it. But the WC is gonna be seeded based on the long look, not the short one. And justifiably so-- the only great changes in program strength over the last quarter century at the top are that China took their money out of team sports and put it into individual, and Norway's tiny population caught up with them. And maybe that Brazil's success dwindled as a golden generation aged out-- we'll see. Otherwise this years' top seeds will be rather like all the others, won't they?
That is fine. But you can't use it to dismiss current form. That is what people in the media and here do with it. "USA scored no goals from open play in the whole tournament but they are still the #1 ranked team"; "you can't hold multiple home losses against Ellis as the team is still ranked #1"
Since the whole period just past is supposed to be the one in which you sort out what you want to do when the games are actually meaningful, perhaps that's a good thing? I don't see anything about those facts that should be "held against Ellis." This is the calm before the storm-- while the team should be trying to win every game, the coach should be trying to win in the storm, not in these games. These are basically exhibition season. I'm not in love with Ellis' system-- reminds me a lot of the run and shoot in tackle football, which Buddy Ryan used to call the "chuck and duck." Ellis basically dedicates the two center backs to defense, more or less, and one of the outside backs if everything goes as planned-- and lives with the consequences when that's not enough. The emphasis is so much on keeping the game in the other team's end that it looks pretty awful when it doesn't work; and if Steffi Jones ever gets the German team to get what I think I see her trying to install there, I'm afraid of the possibilities. But OTOH, which of the three of us has actually won a WWC-- and did it mostly with defense with someone else's personnel? Seems to me that she has a right to a certain amount of respect and slack she's not getting around here. And the "card accumulation forced her to win the world cup" meme just seems stoopid to me-- are we really supposed to think she didn't consider every contingency against every opponent beforehand? Isn't that absurdly arrogant?
Critics of the rating system appear to me simply not to like purely objective rating systems, meaning ones that are based only on game results (including score differential) and locations. Rather, they prefer ratings based on personal subjective judgments (their own judgments) of who has and hasn't been "in form" recently. I think they also may not know that purely objective rating systems outperform personal subjective judgments most of the time, when it comes to matching up with game results. (Or, they think that their own subjective judgments are among those few that outperform objective systems.) And, they may not know that the FIFA type of purely objective rating system performs about as well as any other such system. Or, they think teams should be rated based on something other than game results. (I can imagine someone saying of the top EPL team, "Oh, sure, you're at the top of the table, but you're not the top team because the last few games, although your W/L/D record was pretty good, you didn't score in the run of play.")
LOL! I was chuckling when I read this. I'm an Eagles fan and we loved Buddy. Man does that sound like him. Brought back some good memories.
Really?!! Who's coaching the German WNT now? EDIT: Just found this article verifying your post - https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...jones-as-womens-national-team-coach/32880551/
Yes, everyone on European boards was aware and discussing that the same day it happened. We still wonder who's going to succeed Hrubesch, who just won two important matches to qualify for WWC 2019 (vs Czech Republic and Slovenia) but at the same time confirmed multiple times that he's indeed interim and that he doesn't intend to go on for much longer and even gave some vague clue about the coach who should replace him soon.
as mentioned, just an interim coach, but with great creds, he led the men's NT(without the heralded names) to the silver medal at the last Olympics, only loosing to the home side, the Neymar led Brazil in his first led game vs a decent Czech side(about on par with Mexico), he started an baby faced newbie named Lea Schuller, who then proceeded to go all Rambo vs the poor Czechs, scoring all four goals, thanks to the much faster paced attacking style of the new coach(compared to the old Neid/Jones regime)
She’s the spit of a young Sauerbrunn. Their new attacking style looked a lot like a counterattacking style based off of an aggressive press.
yes, definitely more Jurgen Klopp(gegenpressing/counterattacking) than Joachim Low(mid field possession first). but things got so bad under Stefi, that after beating her last October in WC qualifiers, the winning Iceland coach went so far as to mock them in saying "Germans players are all alike" meaning their so one dimensional/easy to figure out. So very refreshing to see a newbie like Lea