Its time for the monthly thread. Discuss http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ranking/lastranking/gender=m/fullranking.html This time last cycle we were 10th.
I think 15 is about right, sandwiched right between Greece/Turkey and Paraguay/Uruguay. Although, looking over the rankings I think Serbia should be ranked much, much higher, but that's a different story.
It just seems to me that there are more than 15 teams in the world that I would expect to beat us if we played them on a nuetral field. I think 25ish is much more realistic, but I'm not surprised that we get the benefit of the way they calculate things.
I pretty much agree. I believe we benefit from being in Cocacaf, being at the top of Concaf and Fifa wanting to benefit from having the USA have a high ranking. It's a good feeling to be ranked number 15, but there are quite a few ranked below us that would beat us on a neutral field.
Well that tie was worth 199 points in their system. Compare that to Portugal draw to Sweden was worth 355 points. Paraguay draw to Ecuador was worth 394 points. El Salvador earn 389 points drawing with US.
15 might be about right...but i'd change the rankings around 1. Spain 2. Italy 3. Germany 4. Netherlands 5. Brazil 6. Argentina 7. England 8. Portugal 9. France 10. Paraguay 11. Portugal 12. Turkey 13. Nigeria 14. Croatia 15. Serbia 16. Russia 17. USA 18. Australia 19. Cameroon 20. Chile 21. Sweden 22. South Korea 23. Ivory Coast 24. Mexico 25. Scotland 26. Ireland 27. Ukraine 28. Greece 29. Egypt 30. Poland 31. Ghana 32. Denmark 33. Czech Republic 34. Colombia 35. Uruguay 36. Switzerland 37. Costa Rica 38. Ecuador 39. Japan 40. Honduras 41. Tunisia 42. Northern Ireland 43. Bolivia 44. Morocco 45. Austria 46. Romania 47. Norway 48. Venezuela 49. Hungary 50. Bosnia-Herz
I like the US hidden down in the thirties, underestimated as always. Out in plain sight, near the top ten, makes them more of a target. I prefer we quietly arrive at the quarter finals in South Africa.
Yeah, we're not better than Paraguay, who lead CONMEBOL qualifying. And I see several teams well into the 20s who would expect to beat us on a neutral field, maybe even going all the way down to Egypt, the current African champions, at 37th. But then I generally maintain we're somewhere between 20-25th in the world. Anything more than that tends to flatter us.
no matter what the ranking usa will be disrespected... asd to any team in the 20's usa could also beat them on a neutral pitch too... and south africa will be neutral unless you happen to be an african nation.. not like germany where trains, buses and hitching can get you almost anywhere
Please don't let us go into the World Cup as a top 10 team with totally unrealistic expectations again. I also believe 15 is a tad too high. I think 20-25 is where we ought to be.
the fifa system is an unbiased model.. you may question how it reflects reality, but if usa does well in confed cup (getting out of group play), wins the hex, usa will be a top 10 rated side.. the performances will earn the rating...
Even if all that happened, we still wouldn't get seeded, we'd end up in the group of death, and go three and out in the World Cup.
Egypt's a strange one. They're the two-time defending African champions (and have won that competition a total of 6 times)..........but have only been to one World Cup since WWII. In their first game of their qualifying group recently, they drew at home...........to Zambia. They've lost recently 4-0 to the Sudan, and 1-0 to Malawi in the last WCQ stage. They're a team that can beat anybody, and lose to just about anybody. It will be really interesting to see how we match up to them at the Confed Cup. I tend to think FIFA rankings are by-and-large meaningless. But they do tell you who's playing well, and who isn't. Spain is far and away the #1 ranked team at 1729 points, almost 400 points better than Germany. Mexico's really taken a tumble down to #25. Good for the US...........not good for CONCACAF.
To expand on this...Costa Rica fell 8 places to 40th while Honduras only rose 1 place to 39th. Apparently losing to Mexico at Azteca is far more damaging to a team than beating Mexico at home is to improving your standing. Also take into account that these rankings include the last four years of results on a weighted scale. Our futility at World Cup 2006 is becoming less and less of a factor on our ranking as the months go by. Asia has really fallen off the map too. Australia is the top ranked team in the region coming in a 32nd I think. p.s. If anyone cares, our ELO rating is 13 right now. Mexico sits at 20
African teams seem to have fallen precipitously as well. Other than Cameroon at 19 (who didn't qualify for the last WC), there is no one higher than 30th. Surprising for a confederation that most would rank third behind Europe and SA.
Aw geez not this shit again. The rankings are statistical, not subjective. It doesn't matter what FIFA "wants." That's fitting. Their star player is Mido.
You know they changed the rankings formula after the last World Cup, brining the US ranking down considerably. Not that we were the reason they changed the formula, but around the same time that they changed it, Sepp Blatter did single out the US and voice his displeasure at the US not living up to the expecations that went along with its FIFA ranking in the last World Cup (although he failed to mention the Czech Republic who were ranked even higher and still failed to get out of the same group).
What happens to Africa and Asia during qualifiers is that there are good teams, but there are a lot of lowly ranked teams. When you look at Ghana's road to qualification for instance, their 2nd round group was Gabon, Libya, and Lesotho home and away. They actually conspired to lose two of those games. Their third round group is Sudan, Benin, and Mali. Mali's a decent team, we know that. But now you see that in qualifying Ghana doesn't really have much of a chance to move up in the rankings because they aren't going to play somebody with a really high FIFA ranking. Meanwhile in European qualifying, a team like Serbia has good squads like France and Romania in their group. Plus pretty decent teams like Lithuania and Austria. There are many more chances to pick up points. Same goes for South America, where Argentina gets to play Brazil, Paraguay, etc. So it's no real schock that the Europeans move up in the rankings here.
It's a mathematical model, but there is bias. There are subjective assessments in there of the quality of opponents in certain regions, and subjective determinations on the number of games that count and how much each game counts (without having re looked at the formula). I thought in 2006-2007 they had fixed this, but apparently not as we're rising now by simply doing what we should do. We're not exceeding expectations in the last year, and yet we're rising to very high levels again.
This is 100% true, but you can say the same thing about CONCACAF. Yet the U.S. has been on a steady climb for the past couple of years. I think the difference is the way the qualifying tournaments are set up. In Africa, they go out of their way to make sure that the perceived top 5 teams never play each other. In CONCACAF, the final HEX ensures that the top teams in the region will all play each other. Same as CONMEBOL.
Thanks- it's interesting and fun to ponder this. One thing I noticed, though... you've got Portugal and both 8th and 11th. Maybe you omitted somebody? If so, we could try to figure out who...
Nope. The Portugal team is so awesome that it cannot be contained by one ranking alone. If Ronaldo feels like he'll qualify for the World Cup twice...perhaps on his own.