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USMNT moves up one place to No. 13 in latest FIFA rankings

USMNT starting eleven, Candlestick Park

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

By CAITLIN MURRAY

The U.S. Men’s National Team is moving up in the world — whether that will help them in Brazil remains to be seen.

The USMNT was rewarded for their recent string of wins by FIFA Thursday, climbing in the newest world rankings one spot to No. 13.

Portugal, which the USMNT will face in group play, dropped one place to fourth in the world, overtaken by World Cup hosts Brazil, which pushed up to third. Spain and Germany remain at No. 1 and No. 2 respectively. Ghana also improved one place to No. 37.

England broke into the top ten. Meanwhile, Argentina and Switzerland both jumped by two places to occupy the fifth- and sixth-ranked spots respectively. Colombia took the biggest hit of the world’s top teams, dropping three spots to No. 8.

In CONCACAF, Mexico sits at No. 20 below the U.S. after dropping one place, Costa Rica jumped six spots to No. 28, Panama moved up four spots to No. 31, and Honduras dropped three places to No. 33. The next rankings will be announced following the 2014 World Cup.

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What do you think of this ranking? Think the U.S. could remain in the top 20 following the World Cup? Do you feel that any teams should be ranked higher/lower?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. “These rankings are meaningless and laughably inaccurate!”

    “But FIFA uses them in some mysterious way, so we need to pay attention.”

    “[Assorted comments about various rankings being too high or too low.]”

    That should cover it. Carry on.

    Reply
  2. According to the farce of FIFA rankings USMNT should beat Ghana handily and fall to Portugal and Germany closely.

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    • This is why the FIFA country rankings are up there in importance with Buzzfeed’s rankings of “top cat fails” and Cosmo’s “top 10 ways to make him go crazy in bed.”

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      • We’re also over-rating them (and over-hyping how dire the whole group is, really) based on our past history with them in two sort of flukey matches.

        Have you seen their recent results? They haven’t sored more than one goal in a match all year (9 matches) against some competition that makes the Hex opponents look like a Euro cup quarterfinalist list. They lost to Libya TWICE. They lost to Montenegro. They went to penalties with a Nigeria team 0-0 that we will all be cutting our wrists over if we don’t beat by at least two. Their wins are 1-0 squeakers over Namibia, Congo, DR Congo, and Ethiopia. In 2013, outside of Africa, they got throttled by Japan 3-1 and drew Turkey 2-2.

        Should they be ranked higher than 37? Maybe, but not a lot. But this is a team we should beat. If we don’t, it won’t be because they are too tough. Let’s get past the hype here.

      • I think Ghana’s problem – far more than lack of talent – is lack of funding and continuity. They’ve got some very good players. But it remains to be seen how they’re going to do in an alien environment, in the wrong time zone, especially when they’ve been (briefly) in Europe, and will only get two friendlies (their friendly match with Honduras fell apart for whatever reason…which again, does not speak well of the logistical prowess of their confederation. And over the last four years, aside from those trips to Japan (and Turkey, which is very close to Africa) they don’t get off the African continent much…mostly because they can’t afford to. Which means aside from the African Cup of Nations they don’t play ANYBODY.

        And logistics can kill you…especially far from home. Travel, lodging, even simply feeding the team well…all that can be a nightmare if it isn’t well-funded and meticulously planned.

      • you know, I get why you would think this… but check out the club teams listed for the Ghana roster. Italy France and other European nations are heavily represented. It’s the World Cup, and Ghana in 2010 was fighting not just for national pride but for the continent of Africa. I doubt logistics would cause Ghana to play less than their best.

  3. 2006 all over again. We’ll be ranked #5 by next week. Then a bunch of bandwagon jumpers will watch because “dude, we are supposed to be so good”, we will pull a Czech Republic type game against Ghana and they will never watch soccer again.

    Reply
      • I would put them in the top four in Africa with Cote de Ivory, Cameroon, and Nigeria. They are the only one that was a made PK away from the semis. They have advanced as far as Cameroon did (losing in the quarters in 1990 on Gary Linekar’s OT goal) and further than Nigeria. Ivory Coast has never even made it out of group.

        These FIFA rankings are a joke in most cases. In our case, I think we are about 13th although we would probably struggle against many teams 14 -30. There is NFW that either CR or Honduras are on par with Ghana. They are inferior footballers to the Ghanians. Would Ghana lose in Saprissa or San Pedro Sulo? Yes, but nearly too would everyone else because both venues offer tremendous home field advantages. Azteca used to. Winning on the road in CONCACAF is not easy, even against minnows. Ghana has a quality unseen by CR or Honduras. I think Ghana is about 20th or so.

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