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USMNT moves up in August FIFA Rankings

USMNTStartingXI1-CubaGoldCup2015 (USATodaySports)

 

By DAN KARELL

Although their 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup run came to a disappointing end in the semifinals, the U.S. Men’s National Team had a reason to smile on Thursday morning.

The USMNT jumped five places to No. 29 in FIFA’s August World Rankings. The boost came after Gold Cup wins against Haiti and Cuba, as well as a pair of draws with Panama. The 2-1 win over Honduras is not counted towards last month’s point accumulation.

While the U.S. had a good month, in terms of the FIFA Rankings, Mexico did one better, zooming 14 places up to No. 26 in the rankings to lead all CONCACAF nations. Costa Rica moved up three places to No. 38, Jamaica jumped 21 places to No. 55, and Trinidad and Tobago moved up eight places to No. 56.

In the top ten, Argentina remained No. 1, followed by Belgium, Germany, Colombia, Brazil, Portugal, Romania, England, Wales, and Chile.

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What do you think of this news? Glad to see the U.S. move up a few places? What do you think of Wales moving into the Top 10?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. The other part some people are missing is that this Gold Cup was played later in the year than the previous couple. So in July when all the CONCACAF teams tumbled down the rankings it was because Gold Cup matches were devalued and dropped without new ones to replace them.

    This month nothing really dropped off and the Gold Cup hit which is why we moved up so many spots with mediocre results. It more or less corrected last months ranking.

    Also te FIFA ranking is constructed to only be “correct” around the time of the World Cup draw. The rest of the time it is accepted as flawed because every confederation is on a different schedule until that point.

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  2. The explanations above are very helpful. The one fishy component, as I see it, is confederation strength. Why is that needed in addition to opponent strength? It introduces a self-perpetuating factor. Playing anybody in UEFA shouldn’t automatically count more than playing anybody in CONCACAF.

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  3. 2018 world cup starters. rubin————johanson— green———hyndman—–zelalem———gyua. Johnson—-brooks——alvarado——yedlin. Guzan. Hate away

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    • Very offensive comment. The Welsh are a humble, hard working nation with ethical standards far superior than what you are insinuating.

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  4. Shows how worthless these rankings are. USMNT drops after friendly wins in Holland and Germany and rises after the sorry showing in the Gold Cup. And how are Romania and Wales ranked so high?

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      • If you read how the rankings work,which apparently no one does, (including Klinnsman) friendlies get a multiplier of 1 , while Concacaf tournaments like the Gold Cup get a 2.5, Confed Cup x3 and World Cup times x 4. A year later, those points gained at the WC are deprecated 50 percent.

        So the US wins friendlies against Holland and Germany with a multiplier of x1 they get, from both games, about 1100 points. Against Honduras in the first game of the Gpold Cup, the US wins and gets around a 1000 points!!!

        But wait, there’s more! Because of the points are discounted after a year, and the year cutoff comes during the Gold Cup, all remaining points the US wins after that date are discounted 50 percent!!

        But that’s not all!!! Because South America played their federation tournament before the 50 % discount went into effect. The get ll the points at full value, with Chile making off with the mega-bonus points.

        Even More!!! Uefa has a long Confederation tournaments, not played at once, but over months with about 60-70 percent of the tournament completed before the 50 % drop. Not only that but because it’s so many groups, even the minnows like the Faeroe islands, Gibraltar and Lower Elbonia will get at least 8 games against higher ranked nations, most before the 50 percent drop. If you are a Wales or Romania and beat 2 or three higher ranked teams, or even tie a few, you will get more points than the US will get for winning it’s games at the Gold Cup.

        Why is this?? Because Confeds like SA and UEFA has continually “gamed” the system, by insisting that they play their tournaments in a certain format, or before a certain day. In fact, by insisting that the Gold Cup be played in July and not be in competition with SA’s Copa America, the sponsors, media outlets and especially CONCACAF, jobbed all the teams in the Gold Cup. Why? Well CONCACAF and CONMEBOL have the most indicted officials in the FIFA corruption scandal.

        And that is no coincidence!

      • Understood – the Gold Cup debacle was far more important than friendly wins but losing to Jamaica and drawing twice against Panama, all at home, result in a five spot jump? I think 29 is still too low but if we were 34 before the Gold Cup, there’s no way we should go up.

        Plus, Romania have qualified for one major tournament since 2000 and Wales haven’t qualified for one since 1958 – how are these top 10 teams in the world?

      • There is an regional strength component build into rankings that heavily favors European teams. I don’t exactly recall the exact mechanics but each confederation is assigned a regional strength multiplier, which would make a win in UEFA official competition worth more points than a win in CONCACAF official competion. In other words, if a CONCACAF team beats a similar strength opponent that a European team beats in their respective confedration tournaments, the European team will get more points due to regional strength multiplier.

      • The FIFA rankings are actually somewhat fair. People who can’t grasp it don’t have High School level Algebra skills.

      • They’re actually not fare. How are Romania and Wales that much better than the US? I think the US would beat both of them the majority of the time.

        I can grasp the math behind it but the formula itself doesn’t make sense. At least John feels better about himself though with his firm grasp of high-school algebra.

      • Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey, and Ashley Williams are far better than any player we have outside maybe Fabian Johnson.

      • The FIFA rankings are accurate compilations of results weighted by a formula about the quality of the opposition. The weighting formula is pretty strange in its preference for european teams and somewhat circular in keeping it that way and pretty dismissive of friendlies. That said, it is fair in the sense that it is just like a wind-up toy, it does whatever it does without outside influence. It is unfair in the sense that the weighting rewards a result merely for being in the euro qualifiers much more than a similar result in africa would count. But, mostly the ranking is meaningless.

      • That’s great but why do we use a formula that results in a team that hasn’t qualified for anything in over 50 years ranking in the top 10? There is no way a team can be top 10 in the world when they never qualify for the world cup or their own continental championships.

      • Because the rankings are dynamic. Why would you have a ranking that goes back that far? Hungary would be one of the best teams in the world if it did.

      • I don’t have a problem with the first three factors, but the strength of confederation has questionable validity. Strength of the opposing team, which is already taken into account, should be enough to reward teams that beat tough opponents. Why should a European team that beats Andorra get an additional boost in points based on the strength of confederation?

      • the thing is, the strength of a team only takes into account their current ranking. the confederation variable is more historical because it takes into account performance of all teams in the confederation for the past 3 world cups. which, if you think about it, actually makes sense.

        that all said, it’s still a crap formula, clearly.

      • that said, i do agree it allows for too much overlap because individual rankings include historical data as well.

        “Why should a European team that beats Andorra get an additional boost in points based on the strength of confederation?”

        this is exactly why the strength of the team is used as well. sure, a UEFA team will get a 0.99 multiplier for beating Andorra, but since Andorra is ranked #201, that’s only 50 points anyway for T.

        but yes, there could be a more dynamic relationship there. something that reduces C if T falls below a certain threshold.

      • The strength of the confederation has no purpose other than to give Euro and SA teams a bonus. The major factor should be the strength of the opponent. Not only that the strength of the confederation coefficient is self promoting, which means that they will get more points for beating a SA or Euro team than for a CONCACAF, African or Asian team, even if they were ranked almost equally.

        The ultimate Eurosnb bitch-slap

      • Yep. Classic double-counting, thumb-on-the-scale, call it what you will. It just ensures continued UEFA dominance.

      • to be fair, all we have to do to get the double count is perform better at the WC. it’s not a hardcoded variable, it’ll change based on performances.

        that said, UEFA has more teams qualify, so that skews it. then again, it allows for more teams potentially performing poorly at the WC to drag that coefficient down.

        in the end, i do agree that the confederation coefficient is the biggest problem with their formula. and despite this talk about UEFA benefiting the most, right now CONMEBOL has the highest confederation coefficient. of course, only by 0.01….

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