Canada is at least a Top 10 team at the moment based on results - no matter how importantly you regard friendly matches. Friendly matches are given less weighting in the ranking anyway. They are certainly in with a great chance of reaching the quarter-finals - which you'd expect a Top 6 team to do. Then it's up in the air whether they will reach the semi-finals or not (Again, you'd expect a Top 6 team to be somewhere in between the Top 4 and Top 8, logically). Remember, they did win the Gold Cup - despite the fact they didn't have to beat USA. They've had 2 close competitive games with the US in the last few years - both going to extra-time, and 1 going to penalties. Not many other teams have done this. They also won a tournament in Brazil, who have previously demolished the US. Granted, they didn't beat Brazil, but 2 draws away to Brazil are not to be scoffed at. They've also won the Cyprus cup 2 years running. Regardless of what people say about how seriously they take the competition - it's a national team competition, and it's not Canada's fault if other teams don't take it seriously. The ranking ranks NATIONAL TEAM PERFORMANCE based on results, not NATIONAL TEAM PERFORMANCE IN COMPETITIVE MATCHES ONLY. If that is what you are looking for, then it's not a surprise you are constantly disappointed.
Not much chance of that. Sinclair stands apart, but you are wrong about the depth of the team. And football is not physics. For the most part, simple is good. The game plan, as stated by Morace, is possession football. The 4-1-4-1 formation has been used by teams like the Spanish men. It is used in a tight defensive posture, but it is also able to generate powerful counterattacks. And no, I am not comparing the Canadian women to the Spaniards on any basis other than the formation. Defence does one thing; it gives you a chance to win. If the other team doesn't score, you don't lose. It's not quantum mechanics. Canada has beaten decent teams. The caveats about friendlies apply to all teams. Morace tore the team's approach apart and rebuilt it. She has been experimenting with tactics and personnel in every game. Fair enough. That will teach me to crib commentary from the news media without thinking about it. Mea culpa. Your commentary is as charming as it is well informed. According to Wikipedia, "a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum... ...with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response." Your word for your earlier post was "rant". I would call it an inflammatory dismissal of a team you don't like, intended to provoke its supporters. Passion matters. Belief in the system, team and coach can elevate the play of any squad. Trivializing it doesn't make it any less important. Which also explains why the Spaniards have used it, no doubt. In fact, Canada has languished below the level many expected of it after a 2nd place finish at the 2002 U-19 world championship and a 4th at the 2003 WWC. It's recent performance marks a return to contention, not a miraculous emergence from obscurity.
I've come to the conclusion that this is not a forum, but actually the underside of a bridge. That would indeed explain the number of trolls who seem to be congregating here.
I guess any form of what could be deemed edgy humor is not tolerated when discussing women's soccer, sorry. Next time I'll say "WOW Canada are 6th now, cool beans, hope all the girls do well" then leave LOL. You thought my first post was pure inflammatory type porokation. In football talk everything here is PG13 at it's worst. I'll remember in future to go with popular flow . Didn't see 2002 U-19's, but I saw a little of that Canada 2003 performance. They over achieved. I thought I was pretty by your every day football troll standards. It's too hard to be judged by your obvious levels of intelligence, beauty, and eloquence. Hold on let me try though..... I love Canada, they have done so well to be 6th in the world right now too. FIFA rank sure works well. Gee whiz I sure hope they can have a good go at winning the WC. Jonelle Filigno is my new hero. Lathered it on a bit at the end, but is that any better? I feel a 'Silkwood' style shower is needed now.
Ho hum. Anyway, in just under 4 more months the next rankings will be announced, and they will have been updated with respect to the world cup results. If Canada are still 6th, they'll deserve to be. Canada vs. the slowly improving French is going to be the key game.
You'll find that there is consensus and other ranking systems apart from FIFA's also rank Canada in the Top 6. The only solution for you would be to ignore rankings altogether - or just ignore all matches outside World Cup/Olympic Games and make a ranking of your own.
Agreed. It's unfortunate that the French had a bad day against the Dutch at the Cyprus Cup. A Canada-France match-up in the final would have been an interesting set-up for the WWC.
After all that, you still don't make any sense to me. Just a bunch of poorly thought out opinions doing a bad job masquerading as facts. To paraphrase, 'your posts accurately reflect the true limitations of what your working with.'
Well it's easy to see why I obviously never made any sense to you. You can't see the difference between my anti Canada OPINION, and your so very precious FACTS . I'm not basing my WWC thoughts about teams outcomes and success on box scores gathered through websites. I just use the very few games, highlights, or unbiased match reports I can be bothered to look up. Is that such a crime? According to the BS Canadian chapter of the N.O.B.O's (Npinion.But.Our's) patrol , I guess yes. If you all of sudden believe Canada are now able to compete with the two time consecutive WWC winners, purely based on the current friendly ranking system, fine. Just don't cry troll when some random opinion thinks that may sound a tad strange.
Because Canada is number 6, it doesn't mean anyone thinks they can compete with USA or Germany. It takes a lot to be ranked in the Top 2, and USA and Germany have shown consistency in order to make those positions their own over the years. However, Canada has shown it can give the US close games in competitive matches. Nobody is saying they are going to win the World Cup. But a quarter-final place is a reasonable target, no? What exactly are you arguing against? Do you think Canada shouldn't be aiming for the quarter-finals? And what you said in the first paragraph shows that you shouldn't be here at all - "I just use the very few games, highlights, or unbiased match reports I can be bothered to look up. Is that such a crime?" Crime? No. But it just shows how crap your argument is if it is based on only what you can be bothered to look up. Facts show a lot more than opinions. "I think Canada will lose 3-0" versus "Canada won 1-0" - which one will hold up in an argument? Come on - stop whining, give up and let the thread go back to normal.
Those FIFA rankings are a hint at best. Taking them too serious doesn`t bode well for any sort of discussion. The rankings are 100% accurate in what they show. The bitching starts when people try to interprete the meaning and consequences of those numbers (i.e. "my team is ranked higher thus MUST be superior" - "No - you just can`t read between the lines" etc.). Ultimately it doesn`t matter where Canada ranks. France will be a tough challange for the Maple Ladies ... looking/aiming further beforehand would be foolish. The womens game has had a clear cut after the top3 teams (US, GER, BRA) in the past. Personally I think this claim is still legit. Any powerranking after those three is already very debatable and depends on the individual focus, interest or match-up (I rate Sweden as a better team compared to Norway yet would never place any money on them when they are directly up against Norway).
Oh, I'm so sorry not to meet your criteria of women's football fandom. In future I'll turn on my TV and get all my women's club/international results and footage from ESPN, Fox, SKY Sports, or Band ect..... Hey I'll even check out the full live game coverage that's on three or four times week . << Can you see the little blue face? Dry sarcasm = not totally serious. It doesn't seem to work here very well. I'm on the BS women's forum's to get the best heads up info on the women's game. Do I have to only agree with other people to have an legitimate voice. I don't agree on the placing of Canada pre WWC, and I think they will lose it post WWC. I don't think Canadian hopes go beyond or much further than the three group games. Did I say anything aggressive or make personal attacks, no. Yet the lack of humor or good-natured banter here is to the point where I ask, what's the beef? All the FIFA rank stats in the world won't magically change my opinion. An opinion which is based on the experience of seeing past hyped up women's teams pre WWC, looking wildly of center during and post tournament play. If all that's deemed too controversial for the folks here, fine. I'll now let you all go back to enjoying the flavour and odour of your own glorious flatulence, sorry I mean posts.
The rankings are not precise. Among the factors complicating things (as noted by others): teams with recent activity are compared with inactive ones, teams that seldom play against the same opposition are compared to each other, teams that differ by a few points cannot be said to be truly better or worse than each other. They do, however, provide a consistent, results-based basis for comparisons that is at least "a hint" of the true relationship. Canada-France is very likely (almost certainly?) the game that will sort out who progresses from the group. Everything would suggest that there is little difference in their relative strengths. As near as I can tell they have met 6 times since 1991, all games in France. The French won their first meeting in 1995 1-nil. The overall record is 1 win France, 3 wins Canada, 2 draws. The last two fixtures (2006, 2008) were draws. From what I have been able to dig out, since the ranking system was brought in, France was ranked higher than Canada when all matches took place. Based on recent record and history, Canada would seem to have the edge. Too bad they didn't meet at the Cyprus Cup for a head-to-head comparison. I think the top 2 are clear, but Brazil is a big question mark. They play a lot less than many other teams, but their recent performance at home against Caanda raises questions. At the Sao Paulo tournament they were held to draws twice by Canada who played most of one game with a line-up dominated by youth and bench players. I think that several teams have made advances in their skills and tactics to the point that Brazil is less clearly separated from the pack. They still have very skilled players (to say the least), but their organizational problems seem to have made tactical development an issue. I think that the relative differences in strength of teams ranked 3 to 15 is not huge. The difference between any one team and those on either side in the table means little and it is necessary to look at recent performance (and head to head record) to get a clearer picture. Even so, I think that for the most part teams near the top of that block are legitimately stronger performers recently than those near the bottom. Australia may be an exception. They have made mostly steady, incremental improvement in their ranking for several years and seem to me like a top 10 team. As an aside, I also think that the US is slipping and is probably not a better team than the Germans at the moment. Time will tell.
All this to say you're anti-Canada and you don't care about the facts? What a waste. btw I don't know who is saying that Canada will be able to compete with Germany, I certainly didn't. The USA is another matter. I don't see a big difference between the USA and Canada right now. Moreso than Canada, the USA could be in for a nasty fall at this WWC.
I think they are still there, yes they have shown nothing since the Olympics, but it was the same thing before the 2007 WWC. Since Brazil never gels together their "real" team except for the WWC and Olympics it is impossible to say if they still is of the German\US quality or not. I think they are, but any estimate of their strength is pretty much guesswork since it is based on teh fact if they can transform themselves for the WWC the same way they done several time before or not.
New July Ranking : 1. USA 2. Germany 3. Brazil 4. Japan 5. Sweden 6. England 7. France 8. Canada 9. Australia 10. Norway http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ranking/lastranking/gender=f/fullranking.html http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ranking/news/newsid=1478277.html
Just for your information: When you click on the names of the teams you'll get to their "profile" and there you will see their latest matches and how many points they got (or lost) for each match. E.g. Japan got 34 points for beating Germany, but they also lost 33 points for losing against England.
At first it looks like nothing happend on the top 5 spots, but looking at the points I think I never seen so many team so cloae together in the top spots of the rankings. It's 20 pt or less between each step (except Germany-Brazil where its 25) until the huge (88pt) drop behind Sweden.
Here is the list of the wc participants and how many points each of them gained or lost during the world cup (without the pre WC friendlies): Japan +53 Nigeria +52 Sweden +43 Colombia +24 Brazil +23 Equatorial Guinea +16 England +15 Mexico +2 New Zealand +1 Australia -8 France -11 Germany -17 USA -21 Norway -47 Korea DPR -48 Canada -77
Something is odd. E.g. look at Japan 2:1 New Zealand Japan got -1 and New Zealand got +0? I am sure if there are a winner and a loser in a match one team gain the same number of points the other team lose.
Might be a rounding issue? -edit- Must be a rounding issue; I also notice that BRA 2(3)-2(5) USA got -2 for Brazil but +3 for the Americans.
Yeah, but USA and Brazil drew their match and that's a different case. The formula works like this: WWR,new = WWR,old + M*[A-P(r1+H,r2)] M*[A-P(r1+H,r2)] are the number of points a team gets after a match. M = Importance of the match => This value is the same for both teams So we just look at the bracket []. A is the actual match result. It's a value beetween 0.01 and 0.99. The winner gets the value x and the loser gets the value y=1-x, where x>y If the teams draw, both get the same value x and in this case x+x can be larger than 1 For example if team A win 3:1 against team B team A get x=0.911 and team B get y=1-x=0.089. Higher win means higher value x. P(r1+H,r2) is the predicted result and depends on the rating point difference of the two teams. The higher ranked team get the higher value of v (e.g. 0.64) and the lower ranked team get the value w=1-v (e.g. 0.36 in this case). The larger the difference the higher the number for the higher ranked team becomes. [A-P(r1+H,r2)] for the winning (and higher ranked in this example) team is therefor: [x-v] and for the losing team it is: [y-w]=[(1-x)-(1-v)]=[1-x-1+v]=[-x+v]=-[x-v] So the losing team gets exactly the same points as the winning team just with a minus in front of it. And when both teams draw the match it is [x-v] for the higher rnaked team and [x-w] for the lower ranked team, so in this case the numbers don't have to be the same. Edit: Here are the rules: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/r&a-wwr/52/00/99/fs-590_06e_wwrlong.pdf Only problem is that they totally ********ed up the explanation for the predicted match result P. The formula they give us just can't be right. E.g. for a rating point difference of +100 is P=0.64 and for +200 is P=0.76. These values are given in their examples. But the formula for P is: P(x)=1/[1+10(x/2)] where x is the rating point difference. But using this formula P decreases when you increase x, so there must be an error. Edit2: Oh and it is never mentioned what happens in the case of a penalty shoot-out. Stupid FIFA please remake that poor excuse of a ranking explanation.
I get why Norway dropped 23 points losing against Australia, but why did we lose 17 points for losing to Brazil? We lost to Germany by the same margin and only dropped 4 points. Do WWC matches have that great an effect on points? ETA: Apparently, they do. Nevermind.
Yes of course! There are weighting factors. I think the factor is "4" for WC, "3" for Olympics and EC, "2" for Algarve Cup and WC/EC Qualifying games, and "1" for friendly matches. This should explain it. If Norway had lost against Germany in WC, it would probably lose 4*4=16 points. As Brazil is one step below Germany, Norway has lost 17 Points against them.
September ranking : 1. USA - 2. Germany - 3. Brazil - 4. Japan - 5. Sweden - 6. England - 7. France - 8. North Korea +4 9. Canada -1 10. Australia -1 http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/r...r=f/fullranking.html#confederation=0&rank=535