S.J. Ranked #23 in World Club Ranking by FSW

I was just about to post that. Unbelieveable, at best.

 

Holy Crap! That's pretty cool.

 

Wow. The Quakes are better than Bundesliga champions and CL participant Bayern Munchen

 

Wait, this is December 4, not April 1 !!! What's next, Charleston Battery is better than Nottingham Forest. PUHLEEZE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Let the Quakes play the teams nearest to them in rank and we'll know for sure.

Being ranked higher than Munchen on paper means a lot but the key would be if these teams were to meet.

Still, it's a sign that this league and specifically this team is getting some attention compared to their European counterparts.

 

Aaaaaaah, we can take Chelsea! ;-)

 

I'm not trying to hate on you guys, but no team in the MLS as of right now deserves to be ranked up here. The only team that I think SJ or any other MLS team could possibly compete with from the 25 + 9 listed afterwards is Tigres of the Mexican League, but I would make Tigres an overwhelming favorite.

 

At the IFFHS, the highest ranked MLS team is Chicago, who skyrocket from the 627 place to the... 234

http://www.iffhs.de/main/ranking/clubweltrangliste/?sprache=englisch

 

and they also have chelsea at number 19 .......... which is UTTERLY ridiculous. that poll is crap.

 

234th for Fire is still pretty good-there are some excellent teams in the neighborhood. When I look at this list and see how many good clubs there are from everywhere, wow, this is truly the world's game. Stop & think, how can some of those soccer-hating muh-fuhs have the gall to demean this. Yeah, Jim Rome is profound.

 

yeah, thanks for not hating on our league. i realize your league is awhole lot better over there in...maryland?


yeah MLS, isn't quite up there with you guys in your MSL (Maryland Soccer League).

 

It's not utter crap. They take results from a full year of matches for the IFFHS rankings. Not just basing it on a couple great matches in a month like the FSW rankings do. Having Chelsea ranked #1 is utter crap IMO.

As for SJ getting ranked...I wouldn't overreact and think that the rest of the world is giving respect here. In fact, votes are only tallied from North and South America. My guess is that the American journalists were the ones who voted for San Jose.

 

I nearly shed a tear, and guess who happens to be 1 single spot above us?

 

No, IFFHS is utter crap. They subjectively assign strength to leagues and competitions, and then multiply the points earned in each league or competition by their subjective strength points to come up with these numbers, which they claim are "free of any subjective influence".

So they have subjectively ranked MLS as a league at level 2 -- the same level as the leagues from Norway, Poland, Denmark (fine so far), Ireland, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Costa Rica, Ecuador, etc.

I believe that MLS, top-to-bottom, is better than Costa Rica, top-to-bottom, but IFFHS says they're the same, so Alajuela is ranked 154 and Saprissa is ranked 284 while the Quakes are nowhere to be found.

That, and teams that play more games get more opportunities to earn points. They play 38 games in the EPL but only 34 in the Bundesliga, so English teams have an automatic advantage over German teams in this system.

And teams in leagues with creampuffs e.g. Alajuela and Saprissa get to play against a bunch of really crappy teams in Costa Rica, while the Quakes only get to rack up points against the Burn... well, so that's not such a good example. But this is where the top-to-bottom strength of the league comes in.

It's crap, don't pay attention to it. Of course, the FSW rankings are even more crap. The only ranking systems that matter are where teams get to play head-to-head in meaningful competition -- for clubs, this doesn't happen.

 

Whatever. When the Quakes and other MLS teams get knocked out of next year's CONCACAF Champions Cup by some weakass Guatemalan or Costa Rican teams who are ranked well below, we'll see what happens.

(And don't break out the "Well, we don't take those CONCACAF matches seriously" excuse. A class team that deserves that high of a ranking should take CONCACAF Cup seriously.)

 

While i agree that the rankings in both formats are crappy I do have to agree on the MLS being a better league top to bottom than the Costa Rican league. The top team in the Costa Rican league, Saprissa is better than most if not all MLS sides, but that doesn't measure the league as a whole and neither does the Champions Cup. La Liga(Alajuelense), Saprissa, and Herediano are the strongest sides in the league year in and year out. However there is a huge dropoff after those 3. Guanacasteca is having a good season this year and usually there is a surprise team or two but none of the clubs have enough money to really compete year in and year out with Saprissa and La Liga.

 

oh the irony...the irony!!

 

The US national team, comprised mainly of MLS and ex-MLS players (16 of the team's 23 players had logged time in MLS at the time of the Cup, plus Earnie Stewart is now in DC; 11 of them were on MLS rosters at the time and it would have been 12 had Chris Armas not been injured and replaced by Steve Cherundolo), made the World Cup quarterfinals in 2002. DC United defeated Vasco da Gama to win the Inter-American Cup in 1998, a time when the league was a hell of a lot weaker than it is today. MLS teams have consistently played at the level of, and often beaten, foreign teams from prestigious European leagues, particularly the EPL and Bundesliga.

The US national team could, on a given day, beat any team in the world, and I believe that the elite teams in MLS (San Jose, Chicago, and arguably New England) could do the same.

 

I'm a diehard Quakes supporter with season tickets from day one, but there's no way I can agree with this. This came up previously (43rd after the 2001 MLS Cup?), and even then I thought whoever put the poll together was smoking crack. The Quakes would struggle against relegation in England, Spain, Italy, and Germany in the top division. The better Brazilian, French, Argentine, and Mexican sides would beat them consistently. That's maybe 100 teams I would rate higher.

I think the Quakes would do very well in Scotland though.

 

I don't think the Quakes would survive in any of the top leagues either, but that's more due to the roster limits and salary caps and stuff like that, it's tough to get through a 30+ game season against teams that have way more resources than you do.

But in a one-off game, anything is possible, although thinking about guys like Chris Roner playing against guys like Thierry Henri in a meaningful game... I'd have a hard time chanting "We Believe" at that one.

 

What you say is true but it comes with the territory, until MLS starts offering better salaries and roster limits and the like then it'd be hard-pressed to see a deserving MLS team near the top of any team rankings. The great thing about the great leagues is that there is a huge diverse pool of talent, and right now not enough talented players from outside the U.S. are willing to play for MLS' low salaries.

Oh, and from before, fatboy - I meant I wasn't trying to hate on the Quakes, cause I know someone wouldve seen my DCU favorite team thing and said I was infinitively biased and all that.

 

Didn't SJ get absolutely spanked by Chivas back in October?

Only 2-3 French teams are decent. The rest are below MLS. Argentina is extremely top heavy (Boca and River Plate).

Don't forget, the Galaxy played teams from prestigious leagues this summer and didn't fare too poorly, and Ruiz was playing w/ Gautemala.

 

Let's talk about games the coach would take seriously.