Croatia fell 2 spots down to #12 in the February 2008 FIFA World Rankings. Greece moved up to #10 and England took the 11th spot with their 2-1 win over the Swiss at Wembley earlier this month. The top nine remained the same from January. This means absolutely nothing for Croatia and only furthermore proves my point of how horrible the FIFA Ranking system is and why it needs to be fixed.
Argentina has topped the rankings for the past few months with #2 Brazil right behind them. Now, can someone please explain to me how Argentina can possibly be #1 and how they even got there? Argentina only made it to the World Cup quarterfinals; losing to Germany in penalties and then lost to Brazil 3-0 in the CONMEBOL (South America) final last summer. So they’re not even the best team in their confederation!
Italy easily should have stayed at #1 without debate after they took the title in ’06. I think it’s fair enough to say that if you win the World Cup and then qualify for your confederation’s championship (in this case EuroCup) you are doing enough to be the undisputed champion.
Spain at #4, what a joke! I wouldn’t put them in the top 15. They qualified as usual, had the easiest draw I’ve ever seen in the World Cup having faced Ukraine, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia and still couldn’t get past the round of 16. Although, if Croatia does not do some damage at this summer’s Euro, I’m going to have to compare them to Spain with there ‘always qualify but never do anything in a tournament’ campaign- since ’98 of course.
So for you Argentinians who get to claim #1 for doing nothing and the Italians who are being robbed of what they deserve- even though they had the luckiest of draws in the World Cup in my opinion, let me know what you think of the system and what needs to be done to justify it.
The FIFA world rankings are a joke, period! However, I can’t complain because there isn’t a valid formula out there that can compute a so called “world rankings.” Even the world cup doesn’t have the best 32 countries in the world. This has been proved in every one of the 18 world cups.
WC2006–Trinidad&Tobago, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia wouldn’t even be in the “top50” missing out–Cameroon, Nigeria, Turkey, (European Champion)Greece, Belgium, Bulgaria
WC2002–slovenia(can’t kick a football on snowy alps), China, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia—also wouldnt make top50…missing out Holland, Greece…
WC98–Jamaica? wouldnt make top 100, missing out Sweden(3rd place WC94, Czech(2nd euro96), Portugal.
So the answer to world football rankings is this: There are no right or wrong rankings!
Most importantly, the best team doesn’t always win! This is why we play the game. Why someone would argue rankings is mind boggling. These are based on stats. Everyone has their own unique formula.
My ranking is based on one thing and one thing only….. if I was Kosovo, what country would I least want to play? and then rank them in order. This takes into consideration how well this team is playing now and their experience in cups within the past 4 years.
I will share my rankings in a few minutes…
1. Italy
2. France
3. Brazil
4. Germany
5. Argentina
6. Holland
7. Portugal
8. Spain
9. Croatia
10. Czech Republic
11. Greece
12. Turkey
13. Egypt
14. Poland
15. Cameroon
extra bonus
16. Russia
17. England
18. Ukraine
My friend, if you correctly read the blog I stated that Spain can’t get past the round of 16, implying that they did make it out of group stage as they took a perfect 9 points. They then lost to France 3-1 in the World Cup. So you can’t use a meaningless friendly win vs. the French when Spain couldn’t beat them when it mattered. You just can’t justify a #4 spot like that. The Italians won the World Cup, I didn’t like the way they won it but they did. And for you saying that they barely qualified that’s all that matters. You either qualify or you don’t- end of story. And they did in one of the tougher groups. And back to Argentina, my point is that the ranking system is flawed, and it is. If you win the World Cup you need to be 1 no matter if you started there or last in the world. And I understand the money is in Europe but you can’t say it’scompletely biased because the top two teams come from CONMEBOL when neither even made the WC Final. Tennis is the way to go, very accurate and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Benjamin, please let me know YOUR top 15 in the world today!
Where to start, where to start, Spain did make it past group stage, and they have been playing amazingly good, beating france even though it was a friendly it bumps them up alot, England shouldnt even be top 15, Italy first? Italy barely qualified for Euro 08.
I’m not saying Argentina is deserved to be there, but even after they won the ’78 & ’86 world cup they weren’t ranked first till 2007, which is complete and total bullshit, so dont complain, you europeans have it easy, the FIFA is all a business and always pull for european teams, even having an argentinean vice-president doesnt help us.
Another thing, you are number 12 and you didnt get past group stage, so you are basically launching on spain who at least did and lost to the finalist, and on top of that they had a good euro 08 qualifier, I see your point at number 1 but the rest just doesnt make sense, Czech Republic 6th? please you should know these ranking are a joke, you should have known since ’06 when Mexico and the US where top 10.
the fifa ranking are kinda like Tennis rankings its all by points and its all screwed, just the Tennis ones actually do work.