Between the end of the last WWC and the beginning of this year's WWC, Spain grew from a rank+rating of 19th/1815 to 13th/1913. Another nation that's spent a lot more, England, grew a bit from 5th/2038 to 3rd/2049 and even hit 2nd in 2018 (it's harder to change your rank+rating the higher up you are). Comparatively, Denmark fell from 15th/1853 to 17th/1840 and Sweden fell from 7th/1971 to 9th/1962. Of the small countries you mention, only the Netherlands actually improved. Your mention of the Bundesliga is even further off the mark, even by your own reasoning, considering that Germany went out of the WWC and Euro early... not to mention that the Bundesliga's UEFA league coefficient has fallen consistently over the past four years.
They put too less weight on the WC actually, it's most club based ranking I've ever seen in women's football.
On a semi-related, also found it interesting Fishlock said she came away from Lyon with a completely different opinion on who the team's three most important players were... pic.twitter.com/mik44IFJ0s— Rich Laverty (@RichJLaverty) December 6, 2019
Very interesting. I guess it's not a case that these are some of the players that were at OL for the longest (ok, 'Mbock-Bathy actually not for so long, but she's very young and anyway had the whole of her senior career in OL) : OL only keeps the absolut best of the bunch for so long. It's quite apt that Saki Kumagai decided what's been the most important match of OL's season so far, the clash vs PSG in the league.
to see Chelsea games you need to go here The FA Player despite the somewhat lengthy sign up, it is free, or they weren't asking for any fees or credit cards or trying to take over your browser blah, blah, blah to the 4 digit ratings, Sweden's surely quite happy where it really matters; 3rd place the WC, as well as knowing they got a bevy of up & coming newbies(like Avengaard who scored 2 goals vs the US recently) to go along with the 9 picked in the Guardian poll the 2017 Euros was Denmark's best showing ever in a major tourney don't know why that sleeping giant of German broso fans continue not wake up to woso especially since they've fallen to #16 in men's rankings. But the frauleins are still at a healthy #2, have only lost 1 game since early 2018/via the Stefi Jones coaching debacle during the SBC. Their youth team made it all the way to the Euro u19 finals this summer despite missing their 4 most prominent youngsters(France, Spain, England all had their big guns with them) as with the richer leagues; the England's NT is currently having problems; only 2 wins in their last 8 games, they were much better 4 years ago where they were essentially a summer league with very big internaional names, but they got 3rd place at the 2015 WC as I've mentioned even prior before the 2019 WC, France & Spain are excellent 'friendly' teams(when they got these 'window breaks' due to having so many starters from their flagship clubs; FR aka Lyon, SP aka Barca) so hence they'll be getting those higher 4 digit ratings with all the wins they accumulate, but both squads continue to flop during major tournaments*this is the paradox if you go with this one article(obviously not a panelist among Guardian's experts) it gave Sam Mewis as the top player at the WC Statistically speaking: Data shows Sam Mewis was best player at 2019 World Cup – Equalizer Soccer but I do feel Lavelle was the icing on the cake! It finally gave us that sort of crafty playmaker ala Kim Little; speedy enough to slash & dash, smart enough to know when to pass, Compare that to Ellis using the one dimensional, Pugh, previously, & you got to wonder if we would of won the WC(if Pugh started instead) Got the feeling Lavelle's reign will end when Macario makes her way unto the squad. on a side note; did you see Stanford's GK?; the way she smugly runs up & screams at her opponents faces, even when their lying down on the ground like that one UCLA player. Dang, looks like we found our new Hole Solo! lol
Mewis and Ertz (also Dunn) are my picks for the best USWNT players atm (not only at WWC). Lavelle would've been there too if not for average league season (injuries I guess)
Most players have already been announced: https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...100-best-female-footballers-in-the-world-2021 My top 10 predictions: Aitana Bonmati, Lieke Martens, Irene Paredes, Pernille Harder, Vivianne Miedema, Fran Kirby, Jenni Hermoso, Samantha Kerr, Alexia Putellas, Graham Hansen
There was a 2020 thread as well, so it's probably worth starting a 2021 thread for this list. Definitely a good top ten, though I gotta say I'm a bit surprised at the relative under-rating of NWSL/US players this year. Only 4 NWSL players (2 US players) in the top 30, and none in the top 15... Seeing Rodman and Hatch both below 80 is definitely weird, and the league MVP Fishlock is only #43. For a list that generally skews heavy on club form (versus the FIFA list that skews to NT play) it feels off, especially with NWSL being easier to watch this year than ever before. I guess most of the higher-rated NWSL players are those who spent time in Europe (Mewis, Horan, the OL crew, etc.) so... there's your bias apparently. X-D
Sorry for this rant. I think Heath and Press were both definitely overrated; seeing both of them in this while Groenen dropped out completely annoys me. Groenen definitely had a good enough year to not go from 46 to sub 100. She was better than Press at United and in the Olympics, and Heath has barely played in 2021. Groenen was better than van de Donk in my opinion in 2021 before the start of the new season as well. Has van de Donk been that good for Lyon to stay high up this year? Maybe I guess. I think Groenen suffered from playing for United (no United player in this list) and from being grouped with the Dutch defense at the Olympics despite Miedema being the only Dutch player to have a better tournament in my opinion. I think this is the first Top 100 appearance for Hatch and Rodman; I’m not surprised to see them low on the list. A bit surprised by Fishlock; however, Reading weren’t a great team even with her, and she wasn’t selected for the Olympics.
I will definitely agree on all of these points! Honestly I'm surprised Ertz is a high as she is considering she barely played for Chicago at all. I was more talking about NWSL/US on the whole being underrated, less specific players. For example... Considering the handful of debuts (or very big bumps) on the list that were seen last year just from the relatively short Challenge Cup (Daly at 43, K.Mewis at 47, etc.) I don't think a debut instantly means a low ranking... And I would certainly rank Rodman's performance this year above Mewis' performance last year. All in all, it's just somewhat surprising to me to see so few of NWSL's self-recognized best players on the list when, for example, Horan in #35 but only made it to the second XI - Fishlock, ELS, Purce, Hatch, and Rodman should all be above Horan if this list is truly representing the 2021 club season. In fact, all four of the NWSL players in the top 30 weren't in either of the teams of the year. Maybe I'm more upset at NWSL simply being quite poorly represented than being over- or under-represented.
Not surprised to see leagues from other continents than Europe under-represented considering the huge majority of European judges for this vote.
The 2021 top 10 (full 100 with descriptions here https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...100-best-female-footballers-in-the-world-2021) How they made their choices Our judges were sent a longlist of footballers drawn from leagues on every continent and asked one question: who have been the best female players in the world in 2021? We asked our judges to choose 40 names each, and rank their selection in order from 1-40, No 1 being their choice of the best player this year. How the voting works The No 1 choice of each judge was awarded 40pts, No 2 given 39pts, down to 1pt for their No 40 choice. All the votes were added together to give a raw score. To minimise the influence of outliers, the highest score awarded to a player was then deducted to give a final score. A player needed to receive votes from at least five judges to qualify. If players are level on points in the scoring, the number of individual votes cast is used as a tie-breaker.