I have been in a heated debate with my good friend, Ben “Argentina” Correas, who is a firm supporter of this blog, on the FIFA Ranking system and on where teams in present day soccer deserve to be placed in the ranks. We both agree that the current system is flawed and does no justice to where teams really should be ranked. I would love to have feedback from all of you soccer supporters worldwide, no matter which country you are from, so we can come to an agreed conclusion on the best 15 teams in the world today. Below, I have listed my top 15 as of February 2008. Where do you rank them?
1. Italy
2. France
3. Brazil
4. Germany
5. Netherlands
6. Argentina
7. Portugal
8. Spain
9. Croatia
10. Romania
11. Poland
12. Egypt
13. Czech Republic
14. Ghana
15. Ivory Coast
what does the premiership have to do with playing in the U.S? that has absolutely nothing to do with the arguement. u obviously didnt see my point…just like in the NCAA…all the coaches make a listing of their top 25 teams….then FIFA averages all of them to make a monthy ranking….that would work for the world level…then for confederations the same system would be used just within the continent….that keeps things nice and tidy and keeps control of pot seeding issues…which is why we must have rankings in the first place….keep it out of the computers hands…thats all im saying….
I dont quite agree with greece being so high, and egypt so low, whats sweden and england doing top 15? we are talking about performance lately not who would Kosovo not want to face!
which by the way Mr.Ante it is a country!
and back to your comment Ante, no thanks, you keep talking about that, how cool it would be for the premiership to be played in the US, it would be horrible, same with the rankings man, keep the US out of UEFA/CONMEBOL please!.
If every national team would vote then everyone would have 1 vote, even Mauritania and no coach would NOT vote for their country, it wouldnt make sense, not everyone is as “honest” as americans.
Different perspective equals a different result- which there is nothing wrong with because you obviously know your stuff. So this is the conclusion I have come up with. FIFA uses computers. College football and the BCS uses computer. No one’s happy. Computers don’t calculate how the game was played, ball possesion, a bad call, or any of the human factor. That is why FIFA needs to go to a human poll of all the national team coaches as well as high regarded soccer media in the world. Example: U.S college basketball. Everyone’s happy and I would say that it’s 99% accurate. And that’s the road the ranking system should go. Comments?
My rankings are based on….
If I was Kosovo, who would I least want to face today?
1.Brazil–favored at every world cup…case closed
2.Italy–world champs…luck wins!
3.France–2nd world cup, outplayed Italy 3 times, beat former champs Brazil
4.Germany– “there are 2 teams, one ball and Germany always wins”
5.Holland– “total football is back”
6.Argentina– Capello would make them world cup champions!
7.Greece— no stars, no i in team
8.Spain—- always in the top 10 never live up to expectations
9.Portugal— best player in the world…enough said..
10.Croatia— aging defense, inexperienced offense..
11.Sweden—- most underrated team in world
12.Poland—- great in qualifying, stage freight.
13.Turkey—- Humiliate Greece in Athens, lose to Bosnia…
14.England— with Capello they would have topped the qualifying group
15.Czech— most overrated team at Euro
16.Ivory Coast– most talented African team
17.Cameroon– knocked out host Ghana
18.Ghana— finished third because of “host” status
19.Egypt— I don’t believe in the hype..
20.Romania— could be a sleeper, or 3 losses and out.
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
200. Kosovo