today's new FIFA rankings

[Captain Biggles]

1. Brazil
2. Argentina
3. Spain
4. France
5. Germany
6. Mexico
7. England
7. Portugal
9. United States
9. Italy

Discuss.

 

[the rusty tromb]

Where's Turkey?

 

[2sexxxy]

The USA is tied with Italy.

Just Perfect.

 

[Captain Biggles]

Rusty, Turkey is 11th.

 

[scouser1]

the FIFA rankings are a joke as always and not based on any reality. They only take into account wins and loses and not the opponents the top ranked teams always play and which world zone they play in. Take for example Mexico always in the top 10 yet the majority of their games are played in the CONCACAF against the likes of the mighty Honduras and St. Lucia, while a European time oh take any you like for example Holland gets screwed over by playing in harder zone and not even playing in the World Cup, its all useless stupid politics.

 

[Big Ben]

I guess we all agree this list is crap. You put Italy against the U.S. ten times, the record would be 9-1-1 for Italy. Come on, the US ranked 9th in the world?! WTF! I bet this was top news on ESPN2.


Turkey would kick the US' ass!

B.B.

 

[luckyjackson]

As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle between the rankings being gospel truth, and a total crock of S***.

The FIFA formula isn't totally absurd, but it's needlessly complicated. Does anyone know what the point award for winning the W.C. is?

U.S. is up there in part because they beat Portugal.

 

[Quickdraw]

FIFA Math

Following is what FIFA use to calculalate the rankings. Note that they consider the last "8 Years". This is the biggest problem. A helluva lot can happen in 8 years. If the rankings are using results from 8 years ago they will hardly reflect todays better teams; for example, Turkey. So, I really don't know what significance the rankings have. One result such as the U.S. beating Portugal probably doesn't have that big an impact. The rankings are totally meaningless at any point in time, so who the fuck cares about them.

The relevant web site is at the bottom of the following info.

Taken into consideration for the ranking are all international-A match results over a time span of the last eight years:


World Cup finals matches
World Cup preliminary matches
Continental championship final matches
Continental championship preliminary matches
FIFA Confederations Cup matches
Friendly matches
The ranking list is produced by a computer program which assigns a team points for every match, according to clearly defined criteria. The factors taken into consideration are:


Winning, drawing and losing
Number of goals
Home or away match
Importance of the match (multiplication factor)
Strenght of the opponent
Regional strength (multiplication factor)

http://www.fifa.com/rank/index_E.html

 

[jano]

Maya_Indian wrote,

"SCOUSER: Believe it or not Honduras is not a weakling in Soccer and is capable of beating half of Europe's top teams-- Honduras beat the USA 3-1 in Washignton DC and beat Mexico 3-0 during World Cup qualifying games. Honduras also beat powerful Uruguay (2-0), they beat Brazil 2-0 (Brasil had all their stars except Ronaldo and Rivaldo) just last year in the "Copa America".

Brazil did NOT have all their stars at last year's Copa America. The only players from that team that played in the World Cup are Denilson, Belleti and Junior. The Brazilian team in the Copa America was a hastily put together one because the competition was cancelled and then Conembol changed its decision. That is the reason why teams like Argentina and Canada had to miss the contest. I am not saying that the Honduran team is no good, but they beat at best, a third-rate Brazilian team

 

[MRMARCUS]

Why is Spain so high.

 

[jano]

Maya_Indian, there you go again with incorrect info. In last years's Copa America, Honduras beat Brazil in the SECOND round. Uruguay went to the final and was beaten by Columbia. Do you really think a full-strength Honduran team can beat a full-strength Brazilian or Argentinian team?

In my post I said Honduras does not have a bad team. But one victory over a very weakened traditional soccer power does not a great team make. Face it, for most of the qualifying rounds of the CONCACAF region, Honduras was looking like one of the sure qualifiers but lost steam down the final stretch. The spot was their's to lose and they threw it away. Good team? Yes, for the CONCACAF region. World-Class team? hell no.

 

[iguana]

Korea will be up there by the next World Cup. Now that both Korea's have beaten Italy in the World Cup they need new opponents to pick on.