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USMNT drops 12 spots in latest FIFA rankings

FIFA international rankings can be a fickle thing. You can be winning plenty of recent matches and fall down, or be on a losing streak and shoot up.

The U.S. Men’s National Team learned that the hard way on Thursday morning, as they dropped a big 12 spots from last month’s rankings all the way down to 35th. Despite the recent turnaround in form under sort-of-new head coach Bruce Arena, the USMNT finds themselves slipping due to results from 2013 that are no longer factored into the rankings.

In 2013, the USMNT had a run of matches from early June to mid-August in which they won 12 consecutive matches, beginning with a 4-3 defeat of Germany in Washington D.C. and concluding with a win over Bosnia and Herzegovina abroad. The June matches, which include the Germany friendly as well as three victorious World Cup Qualifiers, are removed in this month’s rankings and precipitated the steep drop.

Now mired behind the likes of Tunisia, Egypt, and Senegal, the USMNT will attempt to rise up the rankings by posting a solid result in this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup. Joining them will be Mexico, who rose one spot to 16th as the highest ranked CONCACAF member, Costa Rica, currently in 26th, and Canada, at exactly 100th.

After winning the Confederations Cup, Germany rose to the top of the rankings, overtaking Brazil and Argentina.  Portugal and Switzerland round out the top five while Poland leaps into sixth ahead of seventh-ranked Chile. Colombia, France and Belgium round out the top 10.

Comments

  1. usa is 35th? and mexico is 16th? that is correct. that is how the world rankings should be.

    Reply
  2. The formula obviously has a lot of flaws, but from a US perspective, does it really matter? Other than the top 7 who will go into the seeded Pot 1 for the World Cup draw in December, does it affect the US in any way whether we are 15th or 35th? We’ll end up in the same pot with the other CONCACAF teams regardless of what our FIFA ranking is.

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    • In the end it really doesnt matter as you stated but it is frustrating that the US seems to always catch the brunt of these wacky drops in world rankings. How does Mexico rise when they lost 3 matches in a row at a major tournament?? I guess i have literally no grasp of how this all works

      Reply
    • Very true, but FIFA takes it so seriously that they use it solely or partly (depending, literally, on what mood they’re in 6 months before the WC) to decide on who gets to be a seeded team. The reasons for its ridiculousness are plentiful, but my favorite is how a team can be better off by not playing Int. Friendlies at all, as unless they win and it be against a good team, the rankings points from the game would hurt their average.

      Reply

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