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USMNT down to No. 19 in FIFA rankings

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The latest FIFA rankings are out, and the United States has dropped a spot.

The Americans swapped spots with France to move from 18th to 19th in the world. Over the last month, the United States had its scheduled friendly with Egypt cancelled, while France defeated Brazil.

Mexico remains as CONCACAF's second highest-ranked nation, maintaining its spot at No. 27. Honduras moved up a spot to 38 and Jamaica took a large step, climbing 11 places and into the top 50 at No. 48.

There was hardly any change in the top 10, as Spain, Netherlands and Germany remained the top three teams in the world, respectively. Argentina moved up to fourth and Brazil fell to fifth, followed by England, Uruguay, Croatia, Portugal and Greece.

What do you think about the rankings? Do they matter to you? Impressed with Jamaica's rise?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. And not a single **** was given by anybody (I hope).

    The formula for FIFA rankings are awful, it’s fine for getting a general sense of where a team belongs (the Brazils at the top, the Luxembourgs at the bottom), but it is absolutely worthless for changes such at 18 to 19.

    The US is consistently in the second tier, 10-25 or so.

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  2. Why do we care about FIFA rankings? I am sure we could probably buy a higher rank if they really mattered. We dropped a spot why? Because our “C” team tied Chile?

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  3. I got tickets to Kansas City! Excited for this. It’s usually not easy for fans in Kansas to go to a USMNT game!

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  4. The US justs needs to strengthen our game and forget about the rankings….honestly does it really matter? We are in the top 20, but tie or lose to teams in the top 30+. Occasional upsets are expected but not losing the way we do…..

    July 26, 2009 U.S. Men vs. Mexico ^ 0-5 L

    (ranked 27th)

    Aug. 12, 2009 U.S. Men vs. Mexico * 1-2 L

    Oct. 14, 2009 U.S. Men vs. Costa Rica * 2-2 T

    (ranked 55th)

    Nov. 14, 2009 U.S. Men vs. Slovakia 0-1 L (ranked 22)

    Nov. 18, 2009 U.S. Men vs. Denmark 1-3 L

    (ranked 28th)

    Jan. 23, 2010 U.S. Men vs. Honduras 1-3 L

    (ranked 38th)

    May 25, 2010 U.S. Men vs. Czech Republic 2-4 L (ranked 31)

    Oct. 9, 2010 U.S. Men vs. Poland 2-2 T (ranked 70th)

    Oct. 12, 2010 U.S. Men vs. Colombia 0-0 T

    (ranked 50th)

    We haven’t defeated a team lower than us in the rankings since spain in June of 2009!!! (Before that was maybe Norway in 2006). So before we start calling out teams like Russia, Greece, Japan etc, lets worry about not being beat or roughed up by teams higher in the rankings than us.

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  5. I am a huge NATS fan, but we are not a top 10 team, so I get why folks got miffed by our higher rankings in the past – 18 seems about right.

    I’ve always thought we were more on par with teams like Japan, Ghana (grr) and CHile, as well as some of the better but not quite top flight teams of Europe and South America (I include England in that category, who is ridiculously overrated, but also Denmark, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey ).

    One question though. How the heck is Motenegro ranked in the top 25?

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  6. A big factor in these are the rankings of the teams you play. As Jon hints at, you get extra credit for beating teams ranked above you (which is why beating Brazil at Confed Cup would have been huge for 2 reasons… points for beating top team and bonus points for winning a FIFA title).
    Unfortunately we only play a few top teams. We drew with England in the only competitive match of 2010 that involved a top team. Our win over Spain from ’09 helps.

    Friendlies carry very little weight in these rankings.

    Winning qualifier games against CONCACAF teams isn’t a huge help. Even beating Mexico doesn’t help boost our ranking much since we are ranked ahead of them.

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  7. Montserrat has a population of less than 5,000 people. How in the world do they even have a FIFA ranking?

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