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USMNT drops one spot to 23rd in latest FIFA rankings

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The U.S. Men’s National Team has dropped a spot in Thursday’s FIFA rankings update despite not playing a game since February.

Gregg Berhalter’s side now sits at 23rd in the FIFA rankings, good for second place in Concacaf behind 11th place Mexico, who didn’t move in this rankings update.

The rest of Concacaf stayed mostly the same. Costa Rica comes in at third in the confederation at 46th, followed by Jamaica in 48th and Honduras in 62nd. The only other nations to see movement were Trinidad and Tobago with a one spot jump to 104th and the Bahamas, which fell a spot to 196th.

European nations were the biggest movers this time around thanks to competitive action in the UEFA Nations League. Belgium remains on top of the rankings after a 2-0 win against Denmark and a 5-1 thrashing of Iceland. Overall, the top four remain unchanged. Elsewhere in the top ten, Portugal leapt above Uruguay into fifth position and Spain climbed over Croatia into seventh.

Russia made the biggest jump in this edition of the rankings. Their 3-1 win over Serbia and 3-2 win against Hungary allowed them to climb six spots into 32nd.

Switzerland, on the other hand, saw the biggest drop among big nations. They fell three spots to 15th after a Nations League loss to Ukraine and a draw against Germany.

Here is the current top ten:

1. Belgium
2. France
3. Brazil
4. England
5. Portugal
6. Uruguay
7. Spain
8. Croatia
9. Argentina
10. Colombia

Comments

  1. My question to Greg Berhalter is that Mexico has scheduled 2 friendlies in 2020. Why can’t the USMNT at least schedule something during international breaks in 2020? If COVID-19 resurgence becomes an issue, then cancel. At least make plans to line up the ducks, maybe one in Europe and another in the US.

    Reply
    • One that’s not Berhalter’s job to schedule friendlies. Beyond that there are a lot of moving parts to get better in order like working around MLS schedules that are already compact and not even released yet for October. With a Euro friendly you have to find a country who needs a game outside of their nations league and whose government would allow Americans in without an extended quarantine period. We as fans want to know these things well in advance but federations prefer not to announce them until there for sure going to happen.

      Reply
    • Berhalter is not the bottleneck. Even under normal circumstances, there is no head coach in the world who schedules the team’s friendlies. This is done at the federation level, and would fall to somebody like Stewart (previously it was Dan Quinn, by most accounts). Given the pandemic, this is a likely now a USSF executive-level issue. Berhalter has already said he is eager to play games ASAP — beyond that it’s out of his hands.

      Reply

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