USA is 11th in the FIFA rankings.They did not change their ranking since the last FIFA rankings even though they had won 2 matches since then.Should the USA be higher than 11th or should they be lower?
Aren't these rankings "quantitative"? If so, by their formula, we are 11, so we are 11. To quote Coach Parcells: "You are what your record says you are" Qualitatively (and maybe more realistically), we are probably more like # 20.
I wanted the United States to move up but apparently El Salvador and Panama weren't good enough opposition to do so.
Argentina, Brazil, France, England, Czechia, Spain, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, Japan, Greece, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Turkey, US, Croatia, Australia.
Japan made a big run under Zico this year, which it started at 24, then won the Asian Cup and beat the Czechs, the Serbs and the Argentinians and tied the English. Its only loss was at Hungary. Overall 16 wins, 1 loss, 3 ties.
Japan is not # 11. This is the top 20 1 Brazil 2 France 3 Argentina 4 Spain 5 Czech Republic 6 Netherlands 7 England 8 Mexico 8 Portugal 10 Italy 11 USA 12 Turkey 13 Denmark 14 Republic of Ireland 15 Sweden 16 Germany 17 Greece 17 Japan 19 Uruguay 20 Iran This is from fifa.com
Japan has indeed had a fantastic year. I put them in the same category as the US. A solid group of veterans with a lot of talented youth coming thru the system. Definitely a soccer country on the rise. Honestly, though, haven't we had enough of these ratings. Aren't we savvy enough as football fans to know they're absolutely meaningless.
But that is the problem with ELO in a nutshell. One good win and you jump 8 spots, one bad loss and you drop 8. They leapfrogged a bunch of teams by beating China and Oman (twice), two teams they ought to beat wherever they happen to play them. Here's Japan's 2004 season with home team listed first (similar familiar team): Friendlies (6 - 1 - 2) Japan 4 - 0 Malaysia (Belize) Japan 2 - 0 Iraq Hungary 3 - 2 Japan Czech Rep 0 - 1 Japan Japan 3 - 2 Iceland (Guatemala) in England England 1 - 1 Japan Japan 3 - 1 Slovakia Japan 1 - 0 Serbia and Montenegro Japan 1 - 2 Argentina Qualifiers (5 - 0 - 0) Japan 1 - 0 Oman (Trinidad & Tobago) Singapore 1 - 2 Japan (Nicaragua) Japan 7 - 0 India (Bermuda) India 0 - 4 Japan Oman 0 - 1 Japan Asian Cup (all matches in China) (4 - 2 - 0) Japan 1 - 0 Oman Japan 4 - 1 Thailand (Haiti) Japan 0 - 0 Iran Japan 1 - 1 Jordan (Jamaica) Japan 4 - 3 Bahrain (Cuba) China 1 - 3 Japan
In both FIFA and ELO there are a pack of very close teams. I wouldn't bet on the 10th ranked team to go on the road and beat the 20th. Ok voros, 'fess up. You've got your own system. Where does it have the US?
No because they're not "meaningless." First of all, they affect seeding fot the World Cup. Second of all, they do a fairly decent (though by no means perfect) job of rating the relative strengths of the various teams. Third of all, it's very easy for people to underestimate the value of objectivity, Yes in any rating system some subjective decisions must be made, but ultimately once the rules are in place, the results take over and let the chips fall where they may. Subjective opinions can be maddeningly imperfect when it comes to something like this.
USA is a top 10 team. You can only play the teams that your group has you cant simply move your country over to Europe. It is very very unfair to say well some of the teams USA play are horrible well what about some of the teams Italia plays or England.Italia lost to Iceland. England dont have another top 20 team in their qualifying group.Every team plays horrible teams.
At last pull (October 16): 1. Brazil 2. Argentina 3. Netherlands 4. France 5. England 6. Czech Republic 7. Spain 8. Germany 9. Italy 10. Portugal 11. Ireland 12. Sweden 13. Turkey 14. Romania 15. Denmark 16. Croatia 17. Norway 18. Mexico 19. Colombia 20. U.S.A. 21. Greece 22. Belgium 23. Uruguay 24. Paraguay 25. Serbia and Montenegro 26. Japan 27. Russia 28. Poland 29. Senegal 30. Nigeria I've fiddled with systems over time, but I'm more or less done fiddling with this one because it's had a few empirical tests so far and has done surprisingly well so I have a fair amount of confidence that it is at the very least on par with ELO (it's done better in the tests I've done but not substantially) and at least a little better than FIFA. From Norway through Belgium the teams are all very close so they could shift around as more results come in. Concacaf: 18. Mexico 20. U.S.A. 41. Costa Rica 45. Honduras 65. Guatemala 69. Jamaica 70. Canada 84. Panama 99. Cuba 100. Trinidad & Tobago 105. El Salvador 117. Haiti 134. Grenada 136. St. Vincent & the Grenadines 137. Barbados 144. St. Kitts and Nevis 146. St. Lucia 151. Netherland Antilles 152. Belize 159. Bermuda 162. Antigua & Barbuda 164. Nicaragua 165. Guyana 174. Dominica 178. Cayman Islands 179. Dominican Republic 181. Aruba 188. Puerto Rico 189. Bahamas 190. UK Virgin Islands 195. Anguilla 197. US Virgin Islands 202. Turks & Caicos Islands 203. Montserrat And yes there are two teams worse than Montserrat. Also, two CONCACAF teams rank below a country where until recently the game was illegal to play for several years.
i want to see the us consistantly play the world's best teams evenly or better before i seriously consider us top 10.
I agree. Japan is at about the US level - not 7 spots higher. Jumping all the way to 11th on the basis of beating the Czechs (OK, pretty impressive), tying Engalnd, and beating the Serbs seems a little silly.