So England move up to 4th, Brazil drop to 11th, the first time they have dropped out of the top ten, US down 8 places to 36, Mexico no move at 19 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18703497 http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/news/newsid=1659306/index.html http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/rankingtable/index.html ELO rankings here: http://www.eloratings.net/ Brazil in top 5.
That's what makes FIFA rankings a joke so many times - England is ranked as the 4th best team in the world? Not even 4th best in Europe. I find that the rankings are akin to a monthly comic strip.
I think this set of rankings is skewed anyway because the euro games are weighted heavily meaning that other countries not competing in the tournament will move down the list. I was thinking that being high in the list, or at least being top ten all the time, might work against england. if you are top seed for qualification and for tournaments you are unlikely to have to play other top seeds until the knock stages of a major competition. England do not get exposed to other nations like germany, spain, italy except in friendlies. However, the same could be said for germany, spain, italy and they seem to do alright!
LOL When was the last time they advanced on penalties? I thought I read somewhere it was against Spain in Euro '96? Crazy thing was, I remember mentioning to my wife just before the Pirlo chip, that we might be witnessing a culture shift here... then came the chip. But it brings up an interesting debate though... for the English depravity to change in football, will it take a successful advance on penalties?
I would say that if we could score penalties we would have more to show. Euro 2012 - record 2-2-0 (go out on pens) WC 2010 - record 1-2-1 (lose in 90 to Germany) Euro 2008 - DNQ WC 2006 - record 3-2-0 (go out on pens) Euro 2004 - record 2-1-1 (go out on pens) WC 2002 - record 2-2-1 (lose in 90 to Brazil) Euro 2000 - record 1-0-2 (do not get out of group) we could even go further, 1998 WC lose on pens to argentina, 1996 lose on pens to Germany Penalties have a lot to answer for, but what it does show is that when we qualify we don't often get beaten in these tournaments. yeah we don't look pretty
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jul/06/fifa-defend-rankings-system?newsfeed=true Enough said. I think the sooner media houses stop giving the FIFA rankings any sort of space in their columns, the sooner they will change the system. It's worse than a monthly comic strip. At least with a comic strip, the jokes are usually in good taste.
It's hilarious how quickly these change with one major tournament in one region while the rest of the world basically sits idle during that same time period. Such a joke