New FIFA World Rankings

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

So, the new FIFA World Rankings are out and the mighty England have shot into the top four, ahead of World Cup winners Italy (who admittedly have been poor since).

A rather exciting movement is Northern Ireland, who since beating Spain have gone up 14 to 58 and are now ahead of Wales who are 62 and now officially the worst British team.

The top 20 are:

1. Brazil

2. France

3. Argentina

4. England

5. Italy

6. Netherlands

7. Czech Republic

8. Germany

9. Portugal

10. Spain

11. Nigeria

12. Cameroon

13. Ukraine

14. Switzerland

15. Uruguay

16. Denmark

17. Mexico

18. Sweden

19. Ivory Coast

20. Colombia

[fineintent]

These rankings are gay, how can the World Cup winners be 5th?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Dunno, and how come Italy are below Argentina?

Brazil have hardly been magnificent either....

Though isn't it based on the last two year's worth of results or something so Italy will probably suddenly go top in a year or so...

[Chris the Human]

For comparison's sake, here's the current Elo Rankings top twenty.

1. France

2. Brazil

3. Italy

4. England

5. Netherlands

6. Argentina

7. Germany

8. Denmark

9. Portugal

10. Spain

11. Czech Republic

12. Switzerland

13. Uruguay

14. Sweden

15. Romania

16. Croatia

17. Mexico

18. Turkey

19. Cameroon

20. Nigeria

Other notable ones are

25. United States

26. Australia

36. Japan

86. Northern Ireland

[Number of the Breast]

Scotland at #34? It's official - we're better than Isreal. (Y)

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

ELOs look better balanced (Y)

[MDK]

Nobody has ever taken the FIFA rankings seriously. Except Americans.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

They'll stop doing that so much now too as they're down to 29th, below Paraguay

[Ananas]

Canada breaks the top 75! At this rate we should be in contention to make a world cup by 2018! >_>

[gunnar hendershow]

Glad to see the USA where we belong for once.

[Magus978]

Despite being an American, I think they should be EVEN LOWER down the rankings. They were embarassed in that World Cup, IMO. Around 35th to 40th would be proper.

Where's the love for Ghana?

[Chris the Human]

The Socceroos' shock loss to Kuwait last week really hurt us. We dropped from 18th to 26th as a result of that game, and the upcoming (likely) win against Bahrain won't do much for us.

[Lowerdeck]

ELOs look better balanced (Y)

agreed. On those FIFA ratings, what in the world are half those nations doing in the top 20?

[The Kraig]

I remember when I said the FIFA rankings were a joke ages ago, and hardly anyone agreed. :ohwell:

I'd rather see the Ladbrokes/PaddyPower rankings to see how they calculate odds.

[IAceI]

If you didn't makie it to the World Cup you should automatically drop out of the top 32 or whatever, like hell Romania and Denmark deserve in the top 32 >_>

[Liam]

I remember when I said the FIFA rankings were a joke ages ago, and hardly anyone agreed. :ohwell:

People always agreed they were a joke, the big argument was that you believed Scotland should have beaten X. Y, Z team in qualifying, and I (amongst others) stated that Scotland weren't that much better than the teams they were up against, especially when looking at the FIFA Rankings. The FIFA Rankings are shit, but tend to work out semi-alright when looking at teams playing on the same continent, but its when you have sides like the US going up when not playing any teams of note and making them better than Generic European Side is when it is decidedly dodgy.

[The Kraig]

If I remember correctly, you took what I said wrong. I said Scotland should have been beating those teams because we had better quality players, and you said it was close and such. But we were just in a rut. They're now playing as they should, and as I said, are beating teams they should be beating.

I'm not sure why you're bringing up that old argument, especially since it was stupid in the first place.

Although I do recall people noting it made WAY more sense if you cut it up into continental rankings.

Edited September 14, 2006 by The Kraig

[GA!]

If you didn't makie it to the World Cup you should automatically drop out of the top 32 or whatever, like hell Romania and Denmark deserve in the top 32 >_>

The higher quality of competition in the European countries is so high, the fifteen teams that make the World Cup tend to vary outside the obvious ones like England, Spain, Italy, France and Germany. All the other continents (minus maybe Africa this time around) seem to always have the same teams there, meaning the level of competition to which they qualified because of isn't fantastic.

[Liam]

If I remember correctly, you took what I said wrong. I said Scotland should have been beating those teams because we had better quality players, and you said it was close and such. But we were just in a rut. They're now playing as they should, and as I said, are beating teams they should be beating.

I'm not sure why you're bringing up that old argument, especially since it was stupid in the first place.

Although I do recall people noting it made WAY more sense if you cut it up into continental rankings.

I was bringing up the argument purely because thats the only time I've ever seen anyone backing the FIFA World Rankings in any aspect at all, thats all.

And Scotland have decent players, but then so do most teams in Europe, we just don't hear about most of the lesser ones. Scotland are putting it together now which is good, but I still wouldn't believe that they are that much better than some of the middling European nations (better, but not by a lot). On thier day they are good, but they've seriously under-played a lot over the years (although the start to this qualifying group should be a springboard for them to do something, hopefully).

And yeah, the continental split would make a lot more sense.

Edited September 14, 2006 by liamwannabe

[Thomas]

If you didn't makie it to the World Cup you should automatically drop out of the top 32 or whatever, like hell Romania and Denmark deserve in the top 32 >_>

Edited September 14, 2006 by Thomas