A liitle help here... HOW IN TH F*** does the US manage to drop a spot after beating the Mexicans & Hondurans? Meanwhile the Mexicans remain @ 4 which is a disgrace in my opinion. This might not be the correct board but I do value the opnion of the usual suspects
We were talking about the US ranking earlier. From what Ive been told the FIFA rankings dont hold much water.
I have no clue how FIFA does the rankings, but I can only think of one way a team can drop in rank having only victories between the comparison dates: The other countries played more games (and won them) in that time span. Just an educated guess...
While I agree with the rankings are absurd sometimes, unfortunately they do hold some water. When seeded teams are determined for the WOrld Cup, they consult and use the FIFA rankings. So I think is would be nice if the US could stay relatively high in the rankings come 2006 (assuming we qualify, dont want to jinx us).
Meaningless friendlies don't count in these rankings, only competitive matches. The Euro teams have a had a ton of them with Euro qualifies and so have the South Americans with WC qualies. We haven't had any since, uh, the Gold Cup, I think. As time goes by the victories we had in the run up to WC02 go bye bye in the formula. So, we are losing wins against Mexico and Costa Rica and keeping losses to Brasil and whomever we got trounced by in the Confed Cup, my memory is hazy and I'm to slack to look it up. With our qualification cycle about to begin again, we will be picking up points. But not until the Hex stage will we pick up big points against other highly ranked teams. So, expect to drop a few more spots until 2005, while the teams that do well in Euro 2004 and SA qualifications pick up.
I believe frendlies count, just not as much as the "official" matches. IIRC, matches are counted for 8 years, being continuously discounted as time goes by. The good news is France 98 results will be almost completely gone by the 06 draw.
You know what, I think you are right, friendlies count just not nearly as much as "real" matches. Point is, we haven't played in any for a while and the last ones, Gold Cup and Confed Cup weren't really that good for us. Meanwhile the our good results, WC qualifiers and WC02 are becoming less of a factor in the calculations, simultaneaously the top Europeans and South Americans nations are being given the opportunity to really rack up the points.
Friendlies do count. Hypothetically, let's say we sweep Grenada, beat Poland, and sweep Jamaica, El Salvador, and Panama in six games over the rest over the year, all in WCQ matches. I doubt we'd be passed by anything other than a Euro finals appearance by one of the high-quality Euro sides just behind us. And we may catch up to someone else on the way. Of course, my hypothetical assumes going on a run of nine straight wins, but I think the Nats should be expecting at least 6, if not 7 or 8, wins out of their next nine games. Losing more than 2 would be a major disappointment, to me.
Ok, I just checked the FIFA site. Every EURO 04 match will be worth more than a WC qualifier (1.75 vs 1.50). Plus, beating a Euro is worth full points, while beating a Concacaf is discounted to 95%. Further, none of the teams we'll meet in qualifying over the next round are ranked in the top 50 (and most are much farther down), so beating them will do nothing for our ranking. There are 5 Euros within 30 points behind us. Even if we do sweep, I bet we're out of the top ten.
England, Czech Republic and Italy are all right behind us right now. Over the next month they have the opportunity to play 3-6 highly ranked opponents in fully competitive matches during Euro 2004. Over the next month we will play Grenada (ranked 138) twice and Poland (ranked 26) in a friendly. Yeah, I think we have the serious danger of dropping a spot or two.
Does it really matter? I don't think anybody takes these rankings seriously and hopefully in two years we'll have an excellent opportunity to gauge ourselves head-to-head with the best, which will give us a far better indication of our relative status in the world than some very flawed mathematical formula.
True....but as mentioned earlier these rankings do determine what teams are seeded at the world cup....and that is a big deal. It will prevent us from being in the same group as a France or a Brazil. Maybe a small consolation, but something to care about nonetheless.
does anyone know if an away win or draw is worth more than a home win or draw in the points? if so, we got screwed on the points we could've received against Mexico, because Sam's Army and the scattered USA fans there were still not nearly enough to count as a neutral site, let alone a home match.
From FIFA.com's section on the calculation: 3.3 Home and Away Games To make an allowance for the extra handicap of playing away from home, the away-team is awarded a small bonus of 3 points. For games played on neutral territory or during World Cup final rounds there are no such bonus points. Also interesting is the weighting of games: 3.4 Status of a Match The importance of a game is also considered - a World Cup encounter is weighted more heavily than a friendly match. The method applied here is to use a pre-calculated factor by which the points totals of a given match are multiplied. The factors used are: Friendly match x 1.00 Continental championship preliminary x 1.50 World Cup preliminary match x 1.50 Continental championship finals match x 1.75 FIFA Confederations Cup match x 1.75 World Cup finals match x 2.00 This means that qualifying matches are weighted 50% higher than friendlies, continental final round matches 75 % higher and matches during World Cup finals twice as much.
So, we didn't get screwed out of points, but Mexico got extra points for playing an away friendly in which they had more support then the home team. I agree that this is a flaw, but really 3 points don't mean a damn thing when the final calculation is done. I suppose it might mean push a team that was just behind another over the top, but they would have to be damn near tied before the away bonus to make a difference.
People, we are still at #8! You just have to set the date for MAY 2004 on that page. The month of June is not over yet.
And Mexico actually lost 3 points- from 738 to 735. The reason why it moved up in rank by 2 positions is because the two countries above it- Argentina & Netherlands -lost points and fell, therefore pushing up Mexico by default.
Mexico seems to play in alot more friendlies than we do so that could help them. Also I think they are going to play in Copa America, which we should too, so that also will help them gain points over us. Over time though there is no way Mexico can stay up that high, they are not as good as their ranking shows, we are better than they are.
It is nothing to worry about. Two out of the three teams in CONCACAF made it into the elimination rounds, and the other team had four points, as many as the Turks who made it deep into the eliminaiton rounds and finished third. If the US wins CONCACAF, we will be rewarded with a comfy high seed. Cheers! Sir Drinxalot
The final seed is my concern. Early round competition is stiff as is and we do not need help from FIFA to make it more difficult for the nats. First step in our road to CONCACAF's "crownship" is tomorrow ! GO USA !