How the heck does Taiwan merit a ranking of #59 below Panua New Guinea, Tonga, and Gabon? Granted, Taiwan didn't do well in the most recent Asian championships, but it wasn't that long ago that they were in the championship match of the thing.
General consensus is that they put more weight into recent games(South Pacific Games for those teams) as well as blowout(Hence, the reason Australia is so high. Well, higher than they should be. Or New Zealand for that matter) and regional matches too.
1. North Korea 2. Germany 3. Canada 4. The Yanks 5. Norway 6. China 7. Brazil 8. Sweden 9. Russia 10. France I pick Canada to win WC 03.
Post WWC Top 10 Rankings This was an interesting thread to look at after the completion of the WWC. Almost everyone agreed on at least eight of the countries that belonged in the Top 10 but I was surprised to see that only half of the predictions had Germany in the top two spots. In any event, here's what my Top 10 Rankings would have been as of October 13, 2003: 1. Germany 2. USA 3. Sweden 4. Brazil 5. Norway 6. Canada 7. China 8. France 9. North Korea 10. Denmark Even though Sweden finished second in the tournament, that had a lot to do with the way the brackets were set up so I would still rank the USA higher than Sweden. I'm sure this was discussed before, but if the FIFA rankings were used to set up the draw, then why weren't the brackets set up so that #1 would play #4 and #2 would play #3 in the semis if all of the top seeds ended up making it that far. If this had been the case, the U.S. would have played Canada in the semis and Germany would have played Sweden. If the results had been the same, Germany would have played the U.S. in the final. France was very unlucky to get drawn into the same group as Norway and Brazil and IMO would have advanced to the quarterfinals if they had ended up in Group D instead of Russia. After finishing fourth despite losing six defenders, Canada proved that at the very least they deserve to be ranked in the Top 8. I had a feeling before the World Cup started that North Korea really shouldn't have been ranked as high as they were by FIFA and I was really surprised that some of the posters in this thread actually ranked North Korea higher than Germany and one person even ranked North Korea #1. I don't really think that North Korea should be ranked in the Top 8 until they prove that they can defeat one of the other countries ranked in the Top 8 other than China. Several key injuries prior to the start of the WC exposed Norway's lack of depth and China turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the tournament, barely winning "the Group of Dearth" and then losing to injury plagued Canada in the quarters. I don't know if there are plans to play another Four Nations Tournament in China anytime soon, but after their performances in this WC, I don't think that Norway and China belong in the Top 4. Perhaps the next Four Nations Tournament should instead be held in Brazil or Sweden.
StrengthRanking.Com?? I'm not sure what the rankings were back in August, but the rankings for matches played through September 12th weren't that far off the mark for the most part at least with the Top 12. However, there was at least one glaring exceptions since there is no way that New Zealand should be ranked only one spot below Norway at #9. FIFA's ranking of Japan at #14 also seems more appropriate than #10 as well. I wouldn't have a problem with ranking Norway as low as 4th prior to the start of the WC, but they apparently got penalized severely in these rankings for their 1-1 draw at home to Denmark which for some reason is only ranked at #40.
Hmmm. 3 months later, my top 10: 1. Germany 2. US 3. Sweden 4. China 5. Norway 6. Brazil 7. Canada 8. North Korea 9. France 10. Russia (essentially re-arranged, dropped Nigeria - added Russia)
that looks good to me! and they already said Germany was ranked #1 after the semis, so no worries about that, unless they were messing with our minds...
if Germany able to maintain its performance as it has been, they might be climbing up to the top next time around but, the Korean only has good record in Asia only, thats not enough...
Sweden/Norway Looking at your top 10 lists makes me yearn for a Sweden-Norway match. Both would put their hearts into it. Sweden would want to prove it is indeed better than Norway. Norway would want to redeem itself, especially considering that it'll be [sadly] out on the sidelines come Oly '04. Does anybody know their history of most recent matches and results? Any thoughts on who would win should they face each other today? Do you think these top 10 lists would then change? Or do you think Norway is banged up and not what they once were? Or perhaps have they stood still while the rest of the world has caught up, much like the Americans? BTW, the top 10 lists look pretty good, especially in moving China down from their perch.
03/14/03 Norway 1 Sweden 1 Algarve Cup 03/03/02 Norway 3 Sweden 3 Algarve Cup 05/13/01 Norway 3 Sweden 1 Friendly 01/12/01 Norway 2 Sweden 1 Friendly 06/30/99 Norway 3 Sweden 1 World Cup 03/16/99 Norway 2 Sweden 1 Algarve Cup 10/10/98 Sweden 0 Norway 2 Friendly 01/21/98 Norway 2 Sweden 1 Guangzhou Last victory for the Swedes. 3/5/95 Sweden - Norway 4-1 EC semifinal Norway has won 17 drawn 7 and lost 10
Norway - Sweden Rivalry I was really looking forward to the possibility of a Norway - Sweden quarterfinal match like there was during the '99 WC. That was the match I enjoyed watching the most during the '99 WC and it definitely would have been one of the highlights of this WC for me as well. It would be easier to accept Norway missing the 2004 Olympics if they had actually lost to either Sweden or Germany during this WC. Missing the Olympics because of losses to Brazil and the USA and then seeing the host country Greece get an automatic spot even though no one has them ranked in the Top 50 is very hard to take.
Hege's Injury Thanks for posting all of those Norway vs. Sweden results DennisM. Even though Norway has dominated this rivalry over the past 8 years, I think this would have been an extremely close hard-fought match that might have been decided in overtime. The injuries suffered by defender Marianne Paulsen (torn ACL) and forward Ragnhild Gulbrandsen (jumper's knee) prior to the start of the WC hurt Norway's depth, but not having Hege Riise back anywhere close to 100% was what hurt Norway the most.
In the moments that I copied this thread, bostonbully posted in the original thread. Here's what s/he said:
Current FIFA Rankings The latest rankings from FIFA are out: FIFA Women's World Ranking October 24, 2003
WWC'03 winners Germany +2 Sweden +1 Canada +1 Ghana +2 and losers USA -1 Norway -1 China -1 Russia -1 Australia -1 Nigeria -1 Argentina -3
Okay. To start out with, Denmark and Italy are ranked higher than Canada. I don't think so. The Dutch are ranked higher than the Australians. Not right. The Nigerians at 24. Once again, not. Even the Kiwis are ranked higher. While I generally agree that a good number of the non-World Cup European teams should be ranked higher than Argentines, Colombia shouldn't. But so shouldn't Hungary nor Spain. But Spain is in the top 15 in Europe. The Spanish and the Dutch are two of the teams in Europe that have improved the most over the last two years or so. Well, Spain has regained some of the success that they had in the mid-90s. They have had some bad luck with the draw in the qualification for the World Cup and the Euro championships in the last couple of years. If they had easier groups then they might have made it to the final tournaments. Ghana is better than its 50th place marking and better than the 10 teams directly in front of it. I also have to note the laughable ranking of Zimbabwe and South Africa. Over the last 4 years or so, the teams are the 4th and 5th best teams in Africa and South Africa may be 3rd behind Nigeria and Ghana. But to be behind Morocco for South Africa? No way. And Zimbabwe is better than Mali or Ethiopia and Angola. It's all a joke. Zimbabwe and South Africa have played in some tight matches in competitions over the last couple of years. T & T in front of Costa Rica. Once again, I don't think so. It's all a joke. Top ten is okay but I would take out France and Denmark and put in Canada and Russia and have Australia at 11. Italy's place is a little high but they have may have turned a corner with last night's performance. More likely coming back since they had were once a much better team. Now they only need a responsive FA to help them out.
FIFA rankings are based on points accumulated over a number of years. In effect it works like a moving average and can't be expected to reflect current strength. The FIFA site doesn't fully explain the formula for women's points calculations on a game-by-game basis but according to FIFA the most important games (eg WWC finals) are only 4 times as valuable as the least important games. In other words, WWC play and finish are not huge factors in rankings calculations. For example Germany had 2,152 points on July 16 and after winning the WWC they had gained an additional 49 points. In some cases that kind of point gain wouldn't even change the rankings. You can only get so many points for WC wins. For example, Canada could have won the WWC convincingly and maybe moved up a few more positions in the FIFA rankings but that's it. In order to move up the rankings, Canada needed to improve a lot more points in the July 16 to October 24 timeframe than the teams ahead of them: 32 points more than Russia 77 points more than Italy 97 points more than France 101 points more than Denmark etc. If, somehow, a country like Ghana (ranked #53 on July 16) had won the WWC, they would have needed to earn over 200 points to crack FIFA's top 30 and over 300 points just to make the top 20. So in theory a team could be the current best in the world, win the WWC and still not be ranked by FIFA in the top 20 or 30. The winners in points gained since July 16 rankings: Germany +49 points to rise from #3 ranking to #1 Canada +44 points to rise from #12 to #11 Ghana +37 points to rise from #53 to #50 Sweden +22 points to rise from #5 to #4 It's also possible to lose points. The losers since July 16: China -46 points to fall from #4 to #5 Australia -29 points to fall from #15 to #16 Norway -28 points to fall from #2 to #3 Argentina -20 points to fall from #35 to #38
FIFA finally updated the ratings, but this 3-15-04 set of ratings changed not at all for the top 21. Only Mexico among the top 75 gained more than 1 spot, with Nigeria being the only one to lose more than one spot in that grouping. http://www.fifa.com/en/rank/w/index.html
Well even the FIFA Mens ranking is weird. One of the thing pointed out by many is how the US's ranking is boosted maybe 10 spots too high than they should be because the US's usual opponents other than Mexico are very weak opponents, giving them steady, but consistent wins. The carribbean teams are weak enough in general to win with the most basic of squads. It's even easier than Asia where teams like China, Korea, Japan, Iran and Saudi Arabia can beat each other on a pretty regular basis (except the Chinese have never beaten the Koreans at any level). It's a flawed system really. No one who knows mens football well takes it seriously.
You're right about the men's list. Usually many problems with that list. The women's list isn't too bad but still there are problems. Mostly much more minor than on the men's list.