The U.S. Men’s National Team made no movement in the latest FIFA rankings released on Thursday.
Despite a 1-0 friendly win over Concacaf rivals Costa Rica in January, the USMNT remained in No. 22 overall and second among Concacaf teams. This will be the ranking that Gregg Berhalter’s team will remain in heading into March with its next slate of matches scheduled in the Spring.
As for the rest of Concacaf, Mexico remains No. 11th overall, while Costa Rica stayed in No. 46. Jamaica remained in No. 48, Honduras stayed in No. 62, and El Salvador remained in No. 69. El Salvador is holding onto the final Hexagonal qualification spot, if 2022 World Cup qualifying were to begin today.
Only three Concacaf teams moved during the latest rankings with Trinidad & Tobago dropping to No. 105 overall, Nicaragua falling one spot to No. 151, and Aruba rising one place to No. 200.
Canada, Curacao, Panama, and Haiti remain in the top ten for Concacaf representatives. All four teams will aim to push into the top six in the upcoming FIFA windows.
The top six teams in Concacaf will play in the Hex round of World Cup qualifying, with the three winners advancing to Qatar. As for Concacaf nations ranked No. 7-35, they will go through a much-longer qualification process.
As for the entire FIFA rankings, the top five remained the same with Belgium, France, Brazil, England, and Uruguay staying in their spots.
The USMNT’s next matches come on March 26th at the Netherlands and March 30th at Wales.
Good to see Jamaica stay in the top 50. That should help out a bunch of their guys seeking UK work permits
What happened to Curacao? Why are they still ineligible?
I think they have a similar status vis a vis the Netherlands as Martinique, Guadalupe and French Guyana have to France. That is, they are CONCACAF members, but not full FIFA members and not eligible for the World Cup.
Can anyone clarify/correct that?
See below full members can qualify
they’re ranked #80 in the FIFA rankings linked in the article
The top 6 will go to the hex, unless one of the top 6 is Curacao. Correct me if I am wrong, but they are still ineligible.
Nope, Curaçao can qualify for the WC as they are full Fifa members. When the Netherlands Antilles was broken apart Curacao took over its membership and became a country within the Netherlands. Basically Netherlands handles defense and overseeing the economy. The King of the Netherlands is the monarch but Curaçao has its own parliamentary democracy.
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Curaçao probably can’t make up the difference to pass Canada and El Salvador in time though. They have a friendly vs Panama in March but even a win there would boost them much. El Salvador appears to be not playing in March and Canada has a two match set with TnT.