Photo by Dylan Butler II/USA TODAY Sports
By DAN KARELL
The U.S. Men’s National Team woke up this morning outside of the top 20 ranked teams in the world.
FIFA released their latest world rankings on Thursday as the USMNT fell six places to No. 23, following a pair of 1-1 draws to Ecuador and Honduras in October. The U.S. now sit one place behind the Czech Republic and one place ahead of the Czech’s neighbors, Slovakia. The last time the U.S. was ranked outside the top 20 in the world was in July 2013.
Much of the reason for the precipitous fall has to do with the fact that other nations are currently playing qualifying matches, either for Euro 2016, the 2015 African Cup of Nations, or the 2015 Gold Cup. In CONCACAF, the U.S. remain behind top ranked Costa Rica, who are ranked 16th in the world, and Mexico, who are 17th. Trinidad and Tobago, who are now the fourth-best ranked team in CONCACAF, jumped 37 places to No. 49 following three wins in October.
There was plenty of movement in the world top ten as well. Germany, Argentina, and Colombia remain the top three ranked teams, in that order, but Belgium jumped over the Netherlands into fourth place, with the Dutch following in fifth. Brazil checks in at sixth place, France moved up two places to seventh, Uruguay fell one spot to eighth, and Portugal moved up to ninth in front of tenth place Spain.
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What do you think of this development? Worried about the USMNT’s fall? Think they can move back up with wins over Colombia and Ireland next month?
Share your thoughts below.
How will we ever reach the knockout rounds again after this devastating blow to psyche of the team?
FIFA rankings are a complete joke, you get bonus points based on the federation you play in, regardless of who you actually play and how the result goes. I remember after the WC Portugal got more points in the rankings than the US for an identical result against Ghana.
OK, FIFA ranking aside for a second.
Do you honestly think USMNT wins three out of five against the following teams?
Ghana
Mexico
Japan
Sweden
Croatia
(bringing FIFA back into the mix now)
Only one of these teams is currently in the top 15
FWIW it’s worth, I think the prospect is even money with any of these teams–oddmakers would probably underdog the USA in each match though.
Most recent results:
WC 2014 US 2- Ghana 1
WCQ 2014 US 2- Mexico 0
Friendly 2006 US 3- Japan 2
Friendly 2009 US 3- Sweden 2
Have not played Croatia since 1990 (loss 1-0)
I’d take my chances getting out a group with any combo of 3 of those 5 teams.
Sorry, most recent result vs Mex was 2014 friendly with 2-2 tie, the 2-0 WCQ was technically in 2013.
Yeah I’d definitely think we could win 3 out of 5. I’d even go as far as to say we could win 4 or even 5 out of 5.
Regardless, those are all teams we should expect to get a result against
So you are using 5 and 8 year old results for Japan and Sweden but ignore Mexico destroying the USMNT in 2011 and Ghana beating us in 2010?
Perhaps I wasn’t clear; what I meant was if we played each of those teams 5 times each, would we come out with a winning record against all 5? It’s a hypothetical — I know it would take decades to get that kind of a sample in real life — but the point is a top 15 team would say yes without blinking. I’m personally not convinced we’re there yet.
I’m not sure I understand your point. With the possible exception of Ghana, I would like the US against any of those teams more often than not. We’ve proven it against Mexico time and again recently, Japan is not a strong team, Sweden is a one-man team (and even with Zlatan couldn’t qualify for the WC), and Croatia, while a bit of an unknown for the US, failed to get out of their group this summer, finishing behind Mexico. We beat Ghana the last time we played them, despite losing one of our most important players and having to radically alter our game plan after twenty minutes.
tl;dr Yes, I think the US would beat at least three of those teams if it was a W-L situation. In a W-L-D situation, I would expect the US to get a result from at least four of them.
I think my point is that I believe these are comparably matched teams to the USA right now. All but one are similarly ranked to USA. I do think we’re a top 25 team. That’s noting to sneeze at. But we’re not a to 15 team. That’s the goal of course (well #1 is the goal…).
Anyone can get a result against anyone in modern soccer, the distances have gotten shorter, the US could get a result against Germany? of course, the US could get 5 wins against Germany in a row? probably not, but in a hypothetical round robin tournament with those teams + the US in terms of individual talent I would imagine results like:
1. Mexico/Croatia
2. Croatia/Mexico
3. Ghana/USA
4. USA/Ghana
5. Japan
6. Sweden
Japan and Ghana are more talented individually than the USMNT but they have proven for a while that they don’t work as well as a unit, Sweden is just Ibra and friends.
I tend to bet very liberally on the US, so perhaps I have an unrealistic bias, but probably take that action against any team you named except probably Ghana. I’d definitely take it if you said “win at least as many as they lose”
Falling below England? Disgraceful.
#KlinsmannOut
Let’s see, where did I put it? Oh, yeah, here it is:
The rankings are a joke. But they’re important because FIFA uses them. Country A is ranked that high? Country B is ranked above Country C? The US’s ranking is too high/too low/about right. Can someone explain how these are calculated?
Most of the time FIFA rankings are a joke, but as far as the USA goes, #23 is probably about right. We are definitely getting better—so is the rest of the world.
Do they weight different competitions ? It doesn’t seem like it on the outside.
Finish top 16 in the World Cup, again.
Then play many youngsters in a couple of friendlies, drop to 23 ?
Portugal ranked 9th, another example. Portugal fights for last second ties against us.
Read the article. it’s pretty well explained there.
Since the World Cup (the US’s last competitive games), other teams have had and won qualifiers. Those games gave them more points than the ties in friendlies (wins>ties; qualifiers > friendlies). Additionally, the ratings only consider a time range, so points the teams picked up at the early end of that range have dropped off as time has advanced.
i.e., they’ve earned more points than us since the world cup and we likely earned more points than them in the month that stopped counting this month.
Playing different opponents matters too. The better the team, the more “points” you get. I think the tournaments are also weighted differently.
Example: We host two regional tournaments every four years, whereas most others only do one. The points gained from those aren’t as high as the single Euro one, for instance.
It’s about balance. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s more neutral than people want to believe.
yes and all of the UEFA and CAF qualifiers have pushed European and African nations (ok just Algeria) more than our 1-1 friendly draws to Ecuador and Honduras.
They must rate the Caribbean Cup (Gold Cup Qualifier) pretty well too; hence T&T’s wins over Saint Lucia, DR and Antigua getting them 37 spots up!
Its all is meaningless, the last time that we were ranking outside of the 23 – July 2013 – we were running thru qualification and the Gold Cup looking better than ever.
Which Confedertion matters…..EU, CAF, COM opponents garner higher values than CONCACAF.
Competitive matches garner higher values than Friendlies.
The US always takes a significant drop in FIFA Rankings right after the WC since we get a bye past the first couple round of CONCACF WC qualifiers and we bypass the Gold Cup qualifcations as well.
There are 3 tournaments that the US will be playing in over the next 3 years….Gold Cup 15, Copa America, Gold Cup 17….Perorming well in these 3 tournaments will add significantly to our ranking. Add the potential to play in the Confederations Cup and there are more points available to the US than in any other cycle. I’ll worry about our ranking after 2017….till then it doesn’t do anything.
+1 This is the true value of the Confed Cup…. if we can poach a result or two against a top team there, it’s a big deal, because the formula weights most recent results (particularly competeitive ones) most heavily. The Confed Cup occurs about 4 months before seedings are annonuced, so this would be a huge chance for us to actually nip into the top 8 (assuming everything else goes as smoothly as it did this time)
Devastating news.
LOL.
…meanwhile back in Russia…
it’s all MLS’s fault
Don’t talk like that…
..it’s JK’s fault for not starting “The LegenD” TM