"ZURICH (CP) - Canada dropped three places to No. 77 in the latest world soccer rankings Wednesday while France moved into a tie for second spot with Spain." We all know that FIFA rankings don't mean that much, but it is still frustrating to see Canada ranked so low. Hopefully we will be able to climb back into the 60's after the Gold Cup.
Gold Cup starts July 12th. Canada plays Costa Rica in the first match of the tournament, at 1pm. Then they play Cuba on July 14th. The quarter final matches are held the weekend of the 19th. Canada also plays Germany in a friendly on June 1st and thankfully the match will be on tv in Canada. We'll be missing a lot of players though, but it will give some youngsters a chance to impress & perhaps get noticed by a German club or two. Also check out www.canadian-soccer.com for lots more info (in particular, in the fan forums).
Just to add to what Captain Canuck said... the Canada-Germany game will also be on Sportsnet (same day delay). The Gold Cup (first two games at the moment) will also be on Sportsnet.
Hopefully they won't only be on Sportsnet Ontairio, the people in Sportsnet East have missed a few games because of that.
I've wondered why Canada couldn't gain ground. But I don't look at the overall rankings; I look at the rankings within the confederation. But that doesn't look too good, either. They are stuck in nineth place in the region. A full 46 points behind eigth-place Guatemala. Having TWO events cancelled on them last year really hurts in the rankings. (It was two, right?) Basically, they only have one good showing in the Gold Cup to hang their hat on. They've never advanced in WCQ (at least not in the last 8 years on which the Fifa rankings are based), where you get a bulk of points just for playing the games.
In terms of FIFA rankings we are far behind the likes of Guatemala, T&T & Cuba simply because teams like that all have local competitions to play in that count as "official" matches for the rankings (ie. matches that aren't friendlies), such as the recent Gold Cup qualifying tournaments in Central America & the Carribean. We don't have as many local competitions to play in (just the Gold Cup itself), and while we have done well in the last two Gold Cups (& moved up quite a bit each time) for the most part we have only had friendlies to play in for the last 3 years, and haven't had the advantage of playing at home since November of 2000.