June 19, 201510 yr Things can change very quickly in football though. There was such fuss about Colombia, Belgium and Switzerland especially being seeded for the World Cup, things do change and it won't always be the same teams at the top. I don't actually think it makes a whole lot of difference in the end, if a team has been performing consistently well recently like Wales has it's a nice reward to have perhaps an easier qualifying group. It is what it is and I'd rather it be constantly changing so we get little interesting quirks like these. Incidentally, looking at the June rankings I can't see much I disagree with. I wouldn't perhaps move Wales into the top 10 but a nice move into the top 20 would look justified I'd say.
June 19, 201510 yr The only reason Wales are so high is because they beat the team ranked 2nd in a continental qualifying match. If it was France in a friendly they'd probably be around 15-16th. Really don't like the way the rankings are calculated, but they were a HELL of a lot worse before 2006.
June 19, 201510 yr Things can change very quickly in football though. There was such fuss about Colombia, Belgium and Switzerland especially being seeded for the World Cup, things do change and it won't always be the same teams at the top. I don't actually think it makes a whole lot of difference in the end, if a team has been performing consistently well recently like Wales has it's a nice reward to have perhaps an easier qualifying group. It is what it is and I'd rather it be constantly changing so we get little interesting quirks like these. Incidentally, looking at the June rankings I can't see much I disagree with. I wouldn't perhaps move Wales into the top 10 but a nice move into the top 20 would look justified I'd say. It's vital though. Wales are now POT A in the World Cup Qualifying group.
June 19, 201510 yr Wales deserves it then for how they've been playing. You have to look at their quality of football at the time and not by traditional names. Spain and Italy are down and should be in a Pot B for example. It's fluid and always has been. Edited June 19, 201510 yr by DJHazey
June 19, 201510 yr I didn't see any honest football ranking, because European pre-selection is much stronger than any another. Also there is very small number of games between different continents, based on both facts such countries as US, Mexico, Japan always will be very high in FIFA rankings. With free pre-selection Europe easily will have 20 or even 25 places from 32 in World Cup.
June 19, 201510 yr I didn't see any honest football ranking, because European pre-selection is much stronger than any another. Also there is very small number of games between different continents, based on both facts such countries as US, Mexico, Japan always will be very high in FIFA rankings. With free pre-selection Europe easily will have 20 or even 25 places from 32 in World Cup. This is false. Japan, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Mexico, Australia, USA, Costa Rica, South Korea, Iran, South Africa, Ghana, have all proven they can play with any of the teams in your Europe-South American dominated scenario. None of them have an advantage over the top 3-4 South American teams and top 8-9 European teams...but who does?
June 19, 201510 yr Scotland's group has been made to look a lot harder by the fact that Poland have put up a far better fight than they did for WC qualifying in England's group. It really shows that aside from a couple of underperformers (Netherlands I'm looking at you) the range in quality in Pot 1 is ridiculous. Five or six teams will almost always qualify and then you get Greece, who look worse than most of the teams in Pot 4.
June 28, 201510 yr Yeh the pots are produced from the previous qualifying so a lot can happen by the end of a campaign - people retire new players don't have experience etc.
June 30, 201510 yr Guus Hiddink has left his position as the head coach of Holland after 10 months in charge. He leaves Holland with them five points behind the group leaders, Iceland and three points behind Czech Republic in their Euro 2016 qualifying group.
June 30, 201510 yr Guus Hiddink has left his position as the head coach of Holland after 10 months in charge. He leaves Holland with them five points behind the group leaders, Iceland and three points behind Czech Republic in their Euro 2016 qualifying group. No surprises there, they have really fallen hard since last year after their semi final finish in the World Cup.
July 9, 201510 yr Wales have achieved their highest ever FIFA ranking by moving up to 10th from 22nd. Back in August 20111, they were as low as 117th. Top10 FIFA World Rankings: 1st Argentina 2nd Germany 3rd Belgium 4th Colombia 5th Netherlands 6th Brazil 7th Portugal 8th Romania 9th England 10th Wales How can Netherlands be 5th and England in 9th? Bizarre.
July 9, 201510 yr 01 | 1411 | Germany 02 | 1346 | Argentina 03 | 1244 | Belgium 04 | 1204 | Colombia 05 | 1204 | Netherlands 06 | 1177 | Portugal 07 | 1166 | Romania 08 | 1157 | England 09 | 1155 | Wales 10 | 1143 | Brazil 1st Argentina 2nd Germany 3rd Belgium 4th Colombia 5th Netherlands 6th Brazil 7th Portugal 8th Romania 9th England 10th Wales The prognosis tool wasn't far off actually, same top 10. Just didn't account for the Copa America.
July 9, 201510 yr The FIFA World Rankings are a load of cobblers tbh. It's impossible for England to be the 9th best team in the world when they got knocked out of the group stage in the World Cup only scoring 2 goals in the process. Also how can Argentina move up a place to #1 when they didn't even win the Copa America :huh:
July 9, 201510 yr ELO are better but it's nigh-on impossible for a mathematical model to do this accurately. Given that we went to Switzerland and won comfortably I don't actually think 9th is that far off for us. The Dutch still being 5th is odd.
July 9, 201510 yr We're on a winning streak in the Euro Qs and though we didn't do great (but also, not terribly considering our opposition) in those three matches one year ago we've been consistent otherwise. Hardly the weirdest one on there by a long way. The Netherlands is the one I have the most issue with but there's nothing much wrong with the rest of that top 10 right now.
July 9, 201510 yr The FIFA World Rankings are a load of cobblers tbh. It's impossible for England to be the 9th best team in the world when they got knocked out of the group stage in the World Cup only scoring 2 goals in the process. Also how can Argentina move up a place to #1 when they didn't even win the Copa America :huh: England were the third highest-ranked team in the group, so their performance was not as bad as the press like to claim. And, as others have said, results since then have been good. There is no perfect system for ranking teams. The biggest problem is that there are so few competitive matches between teams from different confederations. The rankings within each confederation are broadly OK (although having Wales ahead of Italy, Spain and Portugal is a little odd).
July 13, 201510 yr The World Rankings are fine. Who are good teams? Germany - 2nd in their group behind Poland, lost to Ireland. Spain? Lost to Slovakia and are behind them. Holland? 3rd in their group behind Iceland and the Czechs? Belgium? 1 point in 2 games against Wales. Italy? Haven't won half of their qualifying matches. Brazil? Weren't one of the 4 best teams in their continent. Colombia? Scored one goal in 4 Copa America matches. England? 6 wins in 6 competitive matches and unbeaten in friendlies during that time. But yeah, England are shite and shouldn't be in the top 10!
July 14, 201510 yr Fabio Capello has been sacked as the Russia head coach after three years in the role. His deal has been terminated due to a run of poor results. Russia have eight points out of the 6 games they have played in their Euro 2016 qualifying group.
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