Timotas Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Canadian Press 3/15/2006 11:00:23 AM ZURICH, Switzerland (AP-CP) - World Cup host Germany and European champion Greece dropped out of the top 20 in FIFA's monthly rankings released Wednesday, while the United States moved up to fifth. Canada remained at No. 85, tied with Algeria, despite a 2-0 win over Austria. The Austrians dropped five places to No. 75. Brazil remained atop the list with 835 points, two less than it had in February's rankings. The Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Argentina continue to occupy the next three spots. The Czechs remain a distant second with 789 points, but that's only one more than the Netherlands. The Argentines also lead the U.S. by only one point. Greece, which failed to qualify for this year's World Cup, dropped to 21st place from 19th with 704 points. Germany, which reached the final at the last World Cup and will host the next edition, had been tied with the Greeks in 19th but has dropped to 22nd with 700 points. The fifth-place ranking is the highest ever for the United States, which reached the quarter-finals at the 2002 World Cup finals and won the 2005 Gold Cup. Spain remained sixth while Mexico dropped to seventh and France to eighth. England stayed ninth and Portugal remained in 10th. Iran and Croatia were the teams that benefited from the drop at the bottom of the top 20, sharing 19th in place of Greece and Germany. Palestine moved up 17 places to 121st, its best-ever ranking. From tsn.ca ------------------------------------------------------------------ Our past few results have been great, but no move in the rankings... hmmm... Last 5 games: Canada 2 Cuba 1 Spain 2 Canada 1 Canada 1 Luxembourg 0 Canada 0 USA 0 Canada 2 Austria 0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roots Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 85th sounds about right Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Keeper Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 quote:Originally posted by Timotas Our past few results have been great, but no move in the rankings... hmmm... Last 5 games: Canada 2 Cuba 1 Spain 2 Canada 1 Canada 1 Luxembourg 0 Canada 0 USA 0 Canada 2 Austria 0 I will never understand these rankings especially when tiny nations in the Carribean Sky rocket just for knocking off some other little nation who is ranked 20 places below them. Cuba are the best example of this. Our results speak for themselfs however. Surprise is always useful... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Keeper Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 quote:Originally posted by Timotas Our past few results have been great, but no move in the rankings... hmmm... Last 5 games: Canada 2 Cuba 1 Spain 2 Canada 1 Canada 1 Luxembourg 0 Canada 0 USA 0 Canada 2 Austria 0 I will never understand these rankings especially when tiny nations in the Carribean Sky rocket just for knocking off some other little nation who is ranked 20 places below them. Cuba are the best example of this. Our results speak for themselfs however. Surprise is always useful... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbailey62 Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 quote:Originally posted by Joe Keeper I will never understand these rankings especially when tiny nations in the Carribean Sky rocket just for knocking off some other little nation who is ranked 20 places below them. Cuba are the best example of this. Our results speak for themselfs however. Surprise is always useful... We don't play enough games (on the whole). That's a big part of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trueviking Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 5. United States 8. France 9. England ummm....seriously? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJB Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 quote:Originally posted by trueviking 5. United States 8. France 9. England ummm....seriously? Despite what we want to believe, the United States is a quality side. Are they fifth best? Who knows. But are the Czech Republic 2nd best? I'd say that they belong in the top 10. We just don't want to accept it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 I agree that the USA is a quality side and I am certainly no fan of the US especially in the Bush era. However, they are one of the most underrated and least respected good teams. They are probably far closer to their 5th place ranking than the Czechs are to their 2nd place rankings although the Czech are also quite impressive. I think the FIFA ranking system is wrong but there are far more teams less deserving of their place than the USA. The next 5 teams are Spain, Mexico, France, England and Portugal. While one can at least say that France won a world cup in recent memory even if they have been somewhat embarrassing in recent times what have any of the other teams won recently other than a lot of friendlies. Yet the finalist of the last World Cup, Germany, is at 22nd one rank behind the last Euro champion Greece. The FIFA rankings may be F-u-c-k-e-d up but it is not the US that is in the wrong place whether we like it or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dave Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 Yeah. Does anyone actually believe that Japan, Iran, and Egypt are stronger teams than Germany? At least TnT's ranking isn't as inflated as it has been in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thepatriot Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 Maybe the CSA should do something that mirrors Hockey Canada. Create a Canada 'B' side like the full-time Canadian hockey team that is together in Europe, the most notable tournament they play in is the Spengler Cup in Switzerland. Some NHL Players are added for that tourney, but the concept may work for soccer. If we had a Canadian "B" team we could always put a team into every little Carribean tournament.....blow St. Lucia out of the water and move up the rankings. Thoughts??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loyola Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 I agree with this idea of sending a B (or U-23) team and play the lower central american teams like Belize, Nicaragua, and the islands. But that could be dangerous to register those games as A friendlies if we lose one of them we might find ourselves in the above the 100 th rank. And again we need money to have that kind of games. Unlikely to happen IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bangoutoforder Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 Few fans down here derive much juice from a ranking of fifth. To get out of our group will be difficult; achievement at the World Cup is what matters most. The ranking may or may not flatter, but it does put us in the ol' crosshairs. With that said, one of the keys to tournament success is a measure of fearlessness. I'm starting to see that in our players. None of them will back down from Italy or Czech because of some embarrassing result twenty years ago. Along those lines, our biggest mistake will be to respect that those clubs too much. The next biggest mistake will be to not respect them enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbailey62 Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 quote:Originally posted by Bangoutoforder Few fans down here derive much juice from a ranking of fifth. To get out of our group will be difficult; achievement at the World Cup is what matters most. The ranking may or may not flatter, but it does put us in the ol' crosshairs. With that said, one of the keys to tournament success is a measure of fearlessness. I'm starting to see that in our players. None of them will back down from Italy or Czech because of some embarrassing result twenty years ago. Along those lines, our biggest mistake will be to respect that those clubs too much. The next biggest mistake will be to not respect them enough. Well put. I think we all remember 1998 (although the USA is far ahead of what it was then) and how some comments were made about the USA being capable of beating anybody in the world. Those words came back to bite in a big way. For those of us who are sceptical about #5, it's up the USA to prove that the ranking is no fluke. Good luck to them. A strong USA can only be good for MLS and your domestic scene as a whole and a strong MLS is obviously good for the Toronto MLS'ers which is good for Canadian soccer (at least some of us think so anyway ... I know a few here who don't). db Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeta Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 Got a momment so a couple of thoughts. It's been mentioned that these rankings don't matter too much. Fair enough. Someone has to be 1st and someone has to be 12th and that's pretty much all there is to it. Look maybe more at the company you're keeping on the table then exactly how you're rated on some artificial scale. But, if the USA is the 5th best side in the world then they'll have no problems coming out of their group this summer. And seriously, who's willing to bet big money on that? Canadian B team has been brought up before and it's maybe not such a bad idea for all sorts of reasons except that there isn't money enough to go around for making a decent effort with what's already on the CSA's plate as it is now. Couldn't imagine what a full time travelling B team would suck out of the CSA's coffers. One last thought regarding the WC this summer and who's sitting where on the Coca-Cola FIFA rankings table. It's hard to see weeks ahead never mind months, but come summer more than a few teams on that table are going to be stronger, more organized & more familiar sides than anything they've shown during qualifying. Can the Yanks and Mexicans keep up with that? Don't know. But agreed, the WC is the real test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJT Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 I need more evidence about the US for my personal rankings (well, not rankings per se, more like tiers). The last World Cup was a long time ago, and was so anomalous that I can draw few conclusions about any teams from it anyway (and even if I were to try to, I see only two wins by the US, one of which was over a CONCACAF rival with whom they have been trading victories in recent years). Their results since then do not include enough matches in official competitions against higher-level opponents to be convincing. Even when they did play such matches, their results are less than .500: WCQ = split with Mexico, split with Costa Rica; Confederations Cup = 1 draw, 2 losses; Gold Cups 2003 & 2005: 1 win and 1 draw against Costa Rica, 1 draw against Brazil (which was a loss AET). Furthermore, for whatever importance you can put on friendlies, they have played 20 of them at home (plus 4 more to come before the World Cup) but only 3 away (plus 1 more to come) and 1 on neutral ground, and the results against higher-level teams in those friendlies aren't anything special. I need more than this before putting them in my top tier. We'll see after this summer (my prediction is that it will be a lot tougher than it was in Korea/Japan). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trueviking Posted March 18, 2006 Share Posted March 18, 2006 quote:Originally posted by Grizzly However, they are one of the most underrated and least respected good teams. you really think that the US is under rated?...they are ranked fifth in the world for goodness sake...how much more rated can they be?... especially since they have practically no results in the past number of years against any teams ranked in the top 20 (except mexico)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted March 18, 2006 Share Posted March 18, 2006 They may not be under rated in the FIFA ranking. In fact they are probably a bit over rated in the rankings but not so much as many people think. What I mean by under rated is that most people particularly Europeans hardly rate them at all which is why if they get up to #5 there is a firestorm of criticism even though there are other teams rated much too highly and whose rank is much farther from reality than the US at #5 is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canuck Oranje Posted March 18, 2006 Share Posted March 18, 2006 FIFA rankings are simply a mathematical calculation based on past performance. From my understanding, there is no subjective opinion that goes into it. And like a league table anywhere and in any sport, you can find teams that you think are better, but performing poorly. If you have a problem with the rankings, you need to look at the weightings used to calculate the rankings. I suspect that there would be very little agreement about what the right weightings would be among fans and among national associations. As a result, I doubt it is easy to change. Moving up the rankings is totally within Canada's control. Play often and against good teams. Win and especially win when it counts. Having said all that, most national teams understand that the rankings are only important in that they are used to help develop seedings in some tournaments and help gain a profile that gets the team some quality friendlies as well as help individual players gain work permits. What really matters is winning the World Cup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy_Yank Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 For what's it's worth I usually go by the ELO rankings, which are quite a bit more accurrate than FIFA's. They have the US ranked 13th, and that sounds about right to me. I think we're a top 15 team, but not a top 10 team. Also, we are definitely not a top tier team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juby Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 quote:Originally posted by Dave Yeah. Does anyone actually believe that Japan, Iran, and Egypt are stronger teams than Germany? At least TnT's ranking isn't as inflated as it has been in the past. Iran is really good, look out for them, unlucky group though. Americans aren't that great, like they for sure should usually be in the top 15 and in good form maybe hit the top 10 but think about it: If Italy and the US played ten games, who would have the better record. Same with mexico, england, portugal, spain etc etc. The reason the ranking is messed up is cause it doesn't look at teams rankings going into games, for example, UAE whoops Pakistan, one of the worst teams in the world, then sqeezes by Oman, a terrible team still and they gain 5 or 6 ranks. We beat Austria, we tie the americans and it doesn't even notice the quality of teams were playing. the only way the ranking would work as it is is if teams just played teams around there ranking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearcatSA Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 quote:Originally posted by Dave At least TnT's ranking isn't as inflated as it has been in the past. There's a team I'd love to see get crushed, only because of Jack Warner. I hear he's involved in a World Cup ticket controvery of some sort. Anyone know more details? Any chance of his getting busted? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canuck Oranje Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Again, the FIFA ranking calculation is far more complex than most fans are willing to accept. And yes, the relative strength of the opponent is also factored into the calculation and also the regional strength. Once again, the best solution for Canada is to win, win often, against the best teams and when it counts. That's how the USA pushed up its ranking. This is the Overview from FIFA's website. If you want to get into the detailed calculations check this out. http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/rank/procedures/0,2540,3,00.html Overview The FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking includes the national A-teams of all FIFA member associations who play international matches. Not included in the calculation are matches played by junior teams or other representative national sides (such as the women's national team). 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 FIFA Confederations Cup matches Continental championship final matches Continental championship preliminary 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) Regional strength (multiplication factor) For each team only the seven best results per year are given full weighting. Results from the past are given progressively less weighting year by year until after eight years they are dropped completely. In this way current success is rated more highly than past results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-Man Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 wow and I thought that beating Austria would jumped us 40 spots. It's that damn Jack Warner keeping the cracker down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-Man Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 wow and I thought that beating Austria would jumped us 40 spots. It's that damn Jack Warner keeping the cracker down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redhat Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 quote:Originally posted by G-Man wow and I thought that beating Austria would jumped us 40 spots. It's that damn Jack Warner keeping the cracker down. Cracker? A Ritz? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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