The U.S. men’s national team has dropped one place in the final FIFA Rankings of 2023.
The Americans fell to No. 12 after a mixed pair of November results, the federation announced Thursday. Gregg Berhalter’s squad split two legs with Trinidad & Tobago in the CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinals, advancing to the Final Four of the tournament.
The Americans defeated the Soca Warriors 3-0 on home soil before suffering a 2-1 second leg defeat in Port of Spain. With a 4-2 aggregate scoreline in its favor, the USMNT advanced to March’s Final Four, setting up a semifinal clash with Jamaica in Texas.
The USMNT and Mexico remained No. 1 and No. 2 respectively among Concacaf nations while Panama rose to No. 41 overall among all national teams. Canada, Costa Rica, and Jamaica rounded out the top-six in terms of Concacaf nations.
2022 FIFA World Cup winners Argentina remained in the No. 1 spot while runners-up France stayed in the No. 2 place. England and Belgium both leapfrogged Brazil into No. 3 and No. 4 respectively while the Brazilians fell to No. 5.
Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Croatia rounded out the Top 10 while Uruguay leapfrogged the USMNT into the No. 11 place.
The USMNT’s 2024 schedule gets underway on Jan. 20 in San Antonio, Texas against Slovenia.
Hard to argue against Uruguay jumping us when they beat Brazil in October and Argentina in Buenos Aires in November, and we were busy losing to T&T away. We definitely deserved the drop…and gosh, big shocker, we’ve looked much less convincing since Gregg Berhalter was re-hired. Who woulda thunk it?
We need to perform well at Copa America, period, or Gregg needs to move along. It may well have been a self-serving observation, but Jesse Marsch did make the correct (IMHO) point that this US team is still without any kind of signature win under Gregg and needs to beat someone significant to demonstrate progress.
Question for those who really follow Columbus, especially JR – what do folks think of Wilfried Nancy? I’ve seen a bunch of 3-4-3 and 3-4-2-1 formations from Columbus under him and I really have liked their style under him a lot more than I ever did when Gregg was coaching there.
They are really fun to watch and excruciating to support. Under Nancy there is not a lot of pragmatism. Example up 3-1 at Orlando in Sept 20 minutes to play, they’re still pushing for more. Give up a 2nd in 73, still pushing, even 3-3 in 86th do they back off and just try to save a point on the road? Nope give up the game winner in stoppage time. That being said you also rarely feel they are out of a game. The Crew are probably a little more sound than Nancy’s Montreal team was but that might just be the players. Nancy has had such an effect on Morris, if you watch Aiden this year he almost always just receives and turns and progresses the ball. The improvement from Aiden who was just kind of a blunt instrument go hard guy under Porter to a technical creative 8 has been impressive. Berhalter’s teams in Columbus were good when they stayed healthy Higuain, Finley, Meram, and Kamara really could put on a show. Since the new owners took over The Crew spend more but depth is still a concern for me. It seems like the players love playing for Wilfred, I think having no playing or coaching experience at NT level would give people pause and he’s only been a manager for 3 years. But boy are they fun to watch and so much better than Porter’s show last year.