England's record in the last year and a half is directly comparable to a team like Slovakia (one win out of four matches at the 2010 World Cup, a stuttery first two-thirds of the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign). If that's all it takes to be fourth in the FIFA rankings, the international game is more fucked than we could possibly have imagined.

Analogue Bubblebath II wrote:


At the World Cup, yes. They both made the 16 so were about fifth and sixth in Europe. In Slovakia's case, quite a worthwhile achievement. It sounds like you're dismissing it.

In the current qualifiers, not quite. Exclude Slovakia's win s aginst Andorra and they have only seven points to England's 11.

But as I said above, if you rank 50 teams over only eight games each, there'll be some volatility. Say if the Slovaks win in Dublin.



Lighten up, you big baby.

There's no point getting hot under the collar about it, as the Copa America kicks off in two days time. Unless they have a spectacular meltdown there, Brazil will overtake England again in the next rankings. In the meantime, savour this moment like a freak astronomical alignment, or a long period comet returning to pass the earth for the only time in our or our children's lives, or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes, he star'd at the Pacific — and all his men, look'd at each other with a wild surmise — Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Edit- seem to have wandered off point. The point: This = silly season stuff.

If international football is fucked, it's not because of the ranking system. People look way too much into them. They're designed to reflect recent trends, not to make definite statements about the exact status of each country. That's why the Czech Republic in the late nineties and Greece in the late noughties, to name two examples, retained high positions despite being poor sides at the time - their successes of the preceeding years still counted for something. In a few years time, Croatia will take a big fall, as their good 2006-08 results cease to be relevant.

This is the nature of rankings. I mean, Tiger Woods probably isn't one of the best 50 golfers in the world at the moment, yet his ranking has to factor in more than just the last few tournaments. And after what I saw at Wimbledon a few hours ago, I'd say the same about Roger Federer.

What have Montenegro done to be ranked so highly?

Drawn against mighty England...

Nesta Que Un Club wrote:


Nothing has made more sense in the history of thinking ever. These rankings matter as much as my daughter's Lego Tower Building Olympics. The tantrums are the same, but the results are just as pointless.

I could see a purpose if, say, they made international football representative of the nationality/birthplace of players and - particularly - coaches, and only allowed those teams outside of the top 50 foreign coaches to aid development of football in that country. But while the game's less about sport and more about money, that's unlikely to happen.

Plus beaten Switzerland and Bulgaria. I doubt anyone really thinks they're the 16th best team in the World, but if we moved to a system that only look at competitive or recent games, they'd be even higher and the rankings would be even more volatile.

Switzerland are only 2 places above Ireland, and they beat Spain at the World Cup. That result should have given them tonnes of points.

Duncan Gardner wrote:


This part of the post makes no sense.

Kettle wrote:


They do matter though because they are used to determine seedings for European Championships and World Cup draws. And the group draws if you qualify.

I'm not saying your daughter's Lego Tower Building Olympics doesn't matter as well.

Duncan Gardner wrote:


Oddly, the FIFA women's rankings uses ELO (you'd think they'd use the same system).

As for why England are in fourth, it's not only because none of the South Americans have played competitive football since the World Cup, it's also because the 2007 Copa America has dropped off from the time-scale (last four years) on which the rankings are calculated.

Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay have lost 100s of points in the past month because of that (England themselves have lost 17). This time next month I'm pretty sure both Argentina & Brazil will have picked up enough points to leapfrog England.

Analogue Bubblebath II wrote:


England's record over the last year and a half is W9 D5 L2. Slovakia's record in the same time frame is W6 D4 L6.

Thing is with England is that they very rarely lose to the lower ranked sides, however whenever they come up against teams like Spain/Germany etc. they normally fail to perform.

Essentially, they're the Zlatan Ibrahimovic of international football.

In the last 3 years of competitive internationals (encompassing the qualifiers and finals of the 2010 World Cup, and the current qualifiers for Euro 2012) England have lost twice, to Ukraine and Germany.

In the same period Brazil have lost 3 times (to Bolivia, Paraguay and Holland) and Argentina have lost 7 times (to Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Germany).

Any subjective ranking ranking system has to acknowledge those results somehow, even if all it points out is that England are perpetual "world number 4s" (ie semi-final cannon-fodder) a bit like our tennis players.

Yeah, but we're not. At best we're quarter-final cannon-fodder...

Analogue Bubblebath II wrote:


It would be more impressive had they beaten stronger opposition than Georgia, Cyprus, Armenia and Macedonia.

The Republic of Ireland draw far too many competitive games. They've drawn thirteen (43%) games in the last three tournaments. Only Portugal have drawn as many, but Portugal have played nine more games, and won eight of them.

Analogue Bubblebath II wrote:


In the UEFA rankings (which only uses competitive matches since 2006, and only gives matches between 2006-2008 half points), England would be fifth, just a shade behind Italy:

1 Spain 43144
2 Germany 42023
3 Netherlands 40440
4 Italy 34697
5 England 33383
6 France 32652
7 Croatia 32603
8 Sweden 32142
9 Portugal 31137
10 Greece 30882
11 Russia 30708
12 Czech Republic 29995
13 Denmark 29600
14 Turkey 28673
15 Israel 28609
16 Republic of Ireland 28476
17 Slovakia 28021
18 Ukraine 27102
19 Norway 27098
20 Slovenia 26392
=====================================
29 Northern Ireland 24239
32 Scotland 22901
43 Wales 16882

Rogin en la butaca wrote:


Oddly, the one thing the rankings don't reflect is how many you lose. You get three times as many points for a win as you would for a draw (like any league system around the world), but whether you lose 1-0 in a World Cup final, or 20-0 in a friendly, you get the same amount of points: zero.

David Agnew wrote:


That's why the song says 'You'll Never Beat The Irish' rather than, say, 'You'll Never Avoid Losing 6-0 To The Irish'.

We're a small country with a very shallow pool of players. I think we've been doing okay lately given our resources.

That's also why you're so far down the rankings.

There is, however, no fucking way that we are 20 places worse than the Norwegians, or 27 places worse than the poorest England team since the late 1970s.