By DAN KARELL
The U.S. Men’s National Team paid a price for their two November friendly defeats.
FIFA released their latest World Rankings on Thanksgiving morning, and they saw the USA drop five places to No. 28, one spot ahead of Bosnia and Herzegovina and one spot behind of Ecuador.
The defeats to Colombia (2-1) and the Republic of Ireland (4-1) earlier this month keep the USMNT as the third-best ranked nation in CONCACAF, behind No. 16 Costa Rica and No. 20 Mexico. Rounding out the top five is No. 54 Trinidad and Tobago and No. 56 Panama.
Other big movers in the November FIFA rankings included England, who jumped seven places to No. 13, Israel, who moved up 13 spots to No. 32, Tunisia, who advanced nine places to No. 22, and Jamaica, who jumped 42 places to No. 71.
The world top six remained the same as last month. Germany keep their No. 1 ranking, followed by Argentina, Colombia, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Brazil. Portugal moved up two places to tie France in No. 7, and Spain leapfrogged Uruguay for the ninth position, as the Celeste round out the top ten.
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What do you think of this latest ranking? Do you feel that the U.S. deserves this ranking? Should they be higher? Should they be lower?
Share your thoughts below.
Good
FSU should be #1 they haven’t lost this year
Well, if we gotta suck, now is the time to do it.
digest that.
FIFA rankings mean very little especially this early in the World Cup cycle. Who JK puts on field for friendlies will be different from who plays in upcoming tournaments. You can’t know who can help you unless you give them a chance.
+1
At the end of the day you are absolutely right on that one BellusLudas……
Except when USMNT loses to Colombia. Then, they lost to #3 in the world.
Never thought these rankings implied anything at all but fielding a team like
———————–Altidore—————–Wondo———————
———————————–Diskerud———————————-
——Morales———————————————Bedoya——–
—————————–Beckerman————————————
—-Chandler——–Besler————–Cameron——Fabian—–
———————————–Hamid————————————-
…..we should be glad to only drop 5 places to 28th lol
Exactly. Fielding a team with 3 D mids, and a non creative “10”, combined with two forwards that can’t create on their own is a freakin disaster. Why even bother
I knew this would happen when Donovan retired.
You should check out Donovan’s record in games against top 20 opponents of the non-CONCACAF variety. Most of his appearances and goals came in losses— Dempsey’s record in these matches is far more impressive.
LOL, yea let just ignore those worthless CONCACAF victories, especially that one in the 2002 World Cup to reach the conclusions we desire.
The point is not to ignore them. The point is to show that Donovan has not really been moving the needle for us in the FIFA rankings, as was implied. As has been described elsewhere in the comments, results against UEFA teams are mroe heavily weighted for us than ones in our own confederation. And I’m pretty sure that 2002 result has washed out of the rankings formula altogether by now. LD is a great player, but he has actually done very little to influence our FIFA ranking in years now.
I’m pretty sure he was joking anyway
Yes in hindisght I suppose you’re right. Oops.
Yes I was joking. But you comment is ignorant. Most of Donovan’s goals came against weak competition? Like his goals in the WC? So if Dempsey is so much more impressive, where is his goals, assists and games played records? He is not even in the same class as LD. Just accept the truth. Oh, and he’s a thug.
Assuming you are serious this time (I still can’t tell), you’re missing the point. The original comment you’ve made — as well as the piece itself — are about FIFA rankings. Donovan’s records for goals, assists, and games played ALL came with a very heavy dose of CONCACAF games, and games against weak opposition. These games simply do not drive the rankings.
If we want to compete for a seed (this is the only reason to actually care about FIFA rankings, and it’s not unreasonable to think we can do so based on how close we came this time), our best bet is to focus on getting wins against top 20 opponents outside of CONCACAF. That is quite simply how FIFA algorithm works. Dempsey has unambiguously done more in these games during the timeframe that most affects the rankings. I’m not even sure there is an argument.
He is not a thug, but he is a terrible rapper.
They both have the same number of WC goals: four. They both have played in three WCs, but Dempsey scored in all three. They each had one goal on a great shot, one goal from great dribbling, and one goal that was cheap.
Deuce is also Brian McBride 2.0 for playing with a broken nose. I don’t think LD would ever do that. Dempsey also was playing totally out of position in Brazil. He is not a target forward.
Dempsey has succeeded in Europe. DOnovan might have, but he was too willing to stay in MLS. Dempsey has scored in UEFA/(now Europa League both for Tottenham, including 2 in one game against FC Basel, but one of the finest goals in the competition for Fulham. I do not think LD scored when he played UEFA games for Everton in 2010.
Fifteen of LDs 57 MNT goals were PKs. That being 15-15. Dempsey should never take another spot kick for us again with his luck goal against CR and a horrid miss against Mexico.
Those 15 PKs plus three direct free kick goals, are exactly the difference in career goals for the Nats between those two.
As gifted a player as LD was, I would pick Deuce because of his toughness. You do need some bad asses on your team. Someone the other team is too scared to mess with In no way does LD come close to being this guy. It’s not his fault. He’s not built for it. Donovan has done a lot for US soccer. No doubt, but I would rather have Dempsey.
Nothing to worry about. JK will schedule a few home games against Belize and Antigua, and he will have another record winning streak.
Please remind me of the time we have ever done this. World Cup Qualifiers? Gold Cup matches? JK does not schedule those, CONCACAF does. The only element of choice we have is friendlies–and JK an Gulati have scheduled an incredibly challenging slate of opponents, often away from home.
Keep trying..
That won’t do anything. The FIFA ranking system means beating Andorra gets you more points than beating Mexico.
JK might have kept the tie with Columbia had he not subbed at the end
I wish I could be outraged but teams that just got crushed 4-1 by Ireland have no right to complain.
The headline should have read “….in the latest FIFA spanking”. That’s what you get for losing to Ireland’s B team 4-1. Just look how out of shape that Irish player (I think it is Brady who scored the two goals) is in the picture with the USMNT! 😉
Number 3 ripped us apart. Don’t let those glasses full you.
*edit* Fool not full
NoooooooOOOOOOOOOooooooooo… the soul crushing shame!
Ahhh… they stink. They’ve always been overrated. A serious regression has been underway under dah Klinsmann.