US and the FIFA rankings
Yes, the FIFA rankings are literally yesterday's news, but I still want to comment on them. As has been noted elsewhere, the US moved up a spot to fourth best in the world. This is the best the US has ever been ranked, yet for some reason I find this more disconcerting then encouraging.
Over the last month, we fell hard to Germany and just tied Jamaica. Yes, both of those matches were basically MLS player matches, but the rankings do not take the caliber of your team into account. So why did we move up? Simple put, it's because in March-April of past years, we didn't play as many matches as other teams, so we did not drop as many points (rankings look at the results from the last four years).
Make sense?
I guess I'm just finding to hard to see the fourth best team when I watch the performances over the last three matches (this includes Poland).
Anyway, here is the top twenty.
Pos - Team - Pts - (March Rank)
1 Brazil 830 (1)
2 Czech Republic 779 (2)
3 Netherlands 774 (3)
4 USA 760 (5)
5 Spain 759 (6)
6 Mexico 758 (7)
7 France 754 (8)
8 Portugal 753 (10)
8 Argentina 753 (4)
10 England 744 (9)
11 Denmark 738 (14)
12 Nigeria 737 (12)
13 Turkey 733 (11)
14 Italy 731 (12)
15 Cameroon 723 (15)
16 Sweden 717 (16)
17 Japan 709 (18)
18 Egypt 708 (17)
19 Greece 699 (21)
19 Germany 699 (22)
Germany and Greece move back into the top 20 while Iran and Croatia fall out.
The teams the moved up the furthest were Sri Lanka (up 10 to 135), Kyrgyzstan (13 spots to 146) and the biggest mover of them all Tajikistan (16 places to 125).
The teams that fell the furthest were New Zealand (down 5 to 120), Croatia (falling 5 to 24) and Belgium (slipping 6 spots to 56).
For the US, their World Cup group rankings are:
Czech Republic - 2nd
USA - 4th
Italy - 14th
Ghana - 50th
By the way, Group E is now the only group with 3 teams in the top 20.
The lowest ranked team to make the World Cup is 59th place Togo and the highest ranked team to not be in Germany is Denmark in the 11th spot.
Over the last month, we fell hard to Germany and just tied Jamaica. Yes, both of those matches were basically MLS player matches, but the rankings do not take the caliber of your team into account. So why did we move up? Simple put, it's because in March-April of past years, we didn't play as many matches as other teams, so we did not drop as many points (rankings look at the results from the last four years).
Make sense?
I guess I'm just finding to hard to see the fourth best team when I watch the performances over the last three matches (this includes Poland).
Anyway, here is the top twenty.
Pos - Team - Pts - (March Rank)
1 Brazil 830 (1)
2 Czech Republic 779 (2)
3 Netherlands 774 (3)
4 USA 760 (5)
5 Spain 759 (6)
6 Mexico 758 (7)
7 France 754 (8)
8 Portugal 753 (10)
8 Argentina 753 (4)
10 England 744 (9)
11 Denmark 738 (14)
12 Nigeria 737 (12)
13 Turkey 733 (11)
14 Italy 731 (12)
15 Cameroon 723 (15)
16 Sweden 717 (16)
17 Japan 709 (18)
18 Egypt 708 (17)
19 Greece 699 (21)
19 Germany 699 (22)
Germany and Greece move back into the top 20 while Iran and Croatia fall out.
The teams the moved up the furthest were Sri Lanka (up 10 to 135), Kyrgyzstan (13 spots to 146) and the biggest mover of them all Tajikistan (16 places to 125).
The teams that fell the furthest were New Zealand (down 5 to 120), Croatia (falling 5 to 24) and Belgium (slipping 6 spots to 56).
For the US, their World Cup group rankings are:
Czech Republic - 2nd
USA - 4th
Italy - 14th
Ghana - 50th
By the way, Group E is now the only group with 3 teams in the top 20.
The lowest ranked team to make the World Cup is 59th place Togo and the highest ranked team to not be in Germany is Denmark in the 11th spot.
Labels: US MNT
posted by Mike H at 10:23 AM
1 Comments:
Nice blog you have here.
Czech Republic are 2nd in rankings, USA 4th but I don't think any of these teams have a chance of winning the world cup unfortunately.
Pretty tough group for the USA but you guys normally play well in the world cup.
Kevin
http://www.worldcupsoccerfacts.info
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