The U.S. women’s national team’s early exit from the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup has cost them in the first post-tournament rankings.
The Americans fell to No. 3 after holding the top spot for a lengthy period of time, FIFA announced Friday. Vlatko Andonovski’s side suffered elimination in the Round of 16 in Australia and New Zealand, which was the worst finish in a World Cup by the Americans in team history.
Andonovski has since stepped down as head coach of the program, as did USWNT GM Kate Markgraf.
The USWNT defeated Vietnam 3-0 before tying the Netherlands 1-1 and Portugal 0-0 in group stage play. Sweden eliminated the USWNT on penalties in the knockout stage, ending a disappointing tournament by the 2015 and 2019 tournament winners.
The top three Concacaf nations all dropped in the latest rankings with the USWNT, Canada, and Mexico, while Jamaica and Haiti were the lone top-six teams to move up.
Sweden moved to the No. 1 spot while World Cup winners Spain leapfrogged the USWNT into the No. 2 place. England and France rounded out the top five just behind the USWNT.
Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, and Canada rounded out the Top 10.
The USWNT returns to action on home soil in September with 45th-ranked South Africa taking on the Americans in a pair of friendlies.
also need a coach that understands the international game, the matchups, how to prepare for specific opponents, specific styles, to develop the depth so no last second panic callups are needed (I like DeMelo btw, not a rip on her; Sanchez never played, not a rip on her). if Morgan is the striker, or any striker who needs service, surround her with players who can help her with that or go a different direction; Rodman Smith Sullivan DeMelo did not do that, Lavelle was limited and then nullified by FIFA shenanigans, while Dunn showed she’s not the same player she was (not a rip, her level before was incredible) and Rapinoe should not have been called evidently as her service and game was terrible and a herself a complete distraction with no ROI on it…leaving Horan to have to do most of the creating and service by herself, while Williams was not used for the role she was brought to do and hailed as the best in the world at it by Vlatko
I don’t like ripping on Vlatko, I think he cares and tries, but the alarm bells were sounding before the World Cup, and noted here, and the above was on his watch unfortunately
once all was clear what was up after Yamashita in the Dutch game, meant overcoming was the key rally point…never happened. Instead what we saw
need to be healthy
need to enforce rules in games
need to get men’s limp impact on the game out of it: diving, whining, complicit officiating, massaging from above, messaging from the male gaze, ‘pick your battles’ lol
I’m a man btw
FIFA never been so corrupt…and that is really saying something
Sweden as #1 is a joke, not even top 5. Have never won a WC or Gold medal and haven’t won Euros since 1984.
I’ve been patiently waiting for a USWNT article. 76 colleges were represented at the ‘23 WWC. 137 players w/ NCAA experience. FSU (fav college) (7), Stanford & UNC (6) had the 1st & 2nd most. That represents 21 countries. (There were 32 in total). 6 European countries had @ least one. (England: Bronze & Russo – Tar Heels). 3 South American countries, 2 African countries and the whole Philippines (of course not all; the starting XI & 1st sub). All Concacaf of course had former & current college players. Kiwis & Aussie’s had a lot of former NCAA players also. How many continents are there? ‘The World has caught up to the USA!’ How many WC’s have there been? Who’s won more WC’s than the US? Certainly not Spain, they just won 1, Uno, solo campeon. They have to win 3 more to even be in a conversation with the US! Everyone doesn’t play in Europe, but all the continents are represented at the NCAA level! The ‘want’ to tear down the structure that produces the most Olympians in this country and the most pro athletes throughout the world for the Soccer academy structure is backwards. The women just use the US model because it works and the men side doesn’t. (Tho, Miles, Matt Turner, & Dike were NCAA players). What the US needs is a manager who sees the players as pieces of a painting that you need to build a masterpiece!
It will be interesting to see how the investment in academies effect college soccer. We’re seeing American players like Alyssa Thompson skip college, and we’re likely to see less European players come over if they can play for clubs. NIL muddies the waters a bit but we haven’t yet seen a college soccer star bring in big amounts as we have in gymnastics and basketball. If NWSL continues to expand there will be more and more minutes for young players who in the past would have spent a year or two in NCAA. I think the path for most still will be to come up thru youth clubs (including academies) and then college for 2-4 years then pros.
I agree, eventually academy/club model will be norm for developing women players. ‘Nor the now!’ Right now, I think half of the worlds best players are in the NWSL. The structure is already built for the ladies in Europe, every billion dollar club has a woman’s team. How many NWSL clubs share facilities w/ the MLS club’s?
3rd is probably flattering and a historical artifact based on what we saw at wwc. they obviously need some fixin’. i personally tend to think as long as they are qualified/qualifying emphasis on rank is counterproductive. get the team sorted and the results and the rank will follow. to me we have started working backwards where the rank and winning every friendly drive the car and trying things becomes a bad idea as opposed to a path to improved success.
It’s all done by computer formula, so yes historical results play a part in the formula. You have to also consider the match with Sweden is considered a draw for the rankings because it went to penalties.
the rankings, last i heard, use 4 years of results. so unlike say current NCAA rankings or MLS power ratings, part of the calculation is how you “were” years ago as opposed to “are” strictly now. this was “3rd” ish c. tokyo. at this point it’s a “quarters” team ie top 8. and about to lose some productive veterans where if they don’t sort it right, it gets worse.
to be fair, my experience beginning of the season press or coach rank votes tend to reflect some amount of historical bias, often how it went last year. but fairly quickly they update to present tense. i get FIFA seems to want to be rewarding a consistent body of work over time and make it a little harder to game the system but in this case it’s a lagging index. it flatters us.
i get what you’re saying on how kicks count but that actually flatters us more then as it wasn’t even counted as an L. as such we wouldn’t have taken an “L” for rank purposes all tournament. but we also could only beat 1 team that wasn’t very good.
also, as i said above, i think teams should focus on getting their house sorted — a good team will eventually get their rank — and rank-driven concerns can be counter-productive in terms of your chances to win events. the WNT looked to me like they should have spent more time trialing players, roster competition, and tinkering with tactics. they instead came across like a team flattered by their rank trying to squeeze out success with as little change as possible. WWC then said, no, you’re not as good as you thought. the coach’s job is to detect that in real time and not be fooled by headlines and ranks.