Although I am 120% for the USMNT, I still think that we need a lot of work. Unfortunatley after the gold cup and conf. I wouldn't even rank us that high.
You are 100% correct, the USMNT couldn't even defeat the Brazilian U23 team in the Gold Cup. Remember Mexico defeated Brazil's U23 twice, to win the Gold Cup.
OK, we are crap because we lost one game in the Gold Cup after leading that game for most of the game. I think you guys are hyperventilating, but please proceed.
I think the rankings might as well be determined by pulling names out of a hat, and any team should be given a +/- accuracy of 15 places... please proceed.
Notice that the US is 16 points out of 4th place. After France, Brasil, and Spain, there is a lot of parity. Parity plus the fact we haven't played since the Gold Cup makes dropping a few places a little more palatable. If you aren't playing, the only way to go is down.
So, we beat the Mexican's in south Korea. And Poland beat us in the World Cup. Therefor Poland should be ranked #1 in the world
Oh my gods, I can't believe we've slipped to number 12 in the FIFA rankings!!!!! WTF?!?!? Fire Bruce Arena now!!!!!!
Well if all of the top athletes would play soccer instead of Basketball, Baseball, and Football, we would have been #1 five years ago!
Thanks for trying to bring a little sanity to the "discussion" so far. I hate to see it get buried in the heap of scorn thrown the rankings way. As you say this drop was entirely predictable, we had gone as high as we could based on our early year friendlies and our less than stellar Confed and Gold cup runs. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter where we are at this point. IF we'd had perfect runs this summer (Confed Semi's say and won the Gold Cup) our ranking may have been high enough to keep us in the running for a seed in '06. However since that is no longer to be I'll enjoy keeping track of the seed race, particularly Mexico's chances, and hope our ranking goes up as it will mean we are winning in WCQ.
I agree. We haven't even won in three months! Oh, wait a minute. We haven't played in three months...
South Korea beat Italy. Vietnam beat South Korea. Therefore, Vietnam should be ranked ahead of Italy.
The issue isn't who's rated higher. It's who wins when the money's on the line. ¿Correctamundo, señior Hernandez?
I thank my lucky stars I no longer share a cubicle with an Englishman. I wouldn't be able to show my face at the office.
Why are the Netherlands and Mexico ahead of the USA? Holland wasn't in the World Cup. Mexico lost to USA when it mattered. Signed, A dutchman who learned soccer from Mexicans,
Didn't the FIFA rankings discussion get put to bed well over a year ago. I thought we all decided they were laughable stats, because we all know that every teams fans says their country is number one.
Agreed. But they are included in part of the formula regarding seeds in the World Cup. As a result, they are important. If we could only move garner 16 points we could move up to the top 4 as mentioned above. I wonder if we could get an invite into a FIFA tournament (maybe even a regional tournament) where we could if we won a good game or two we would make some serious headway at those points. I wonder if there are any regional tournamnets upcoming that we can earn some of those points... Oh wait, we are not going, nevermind.