England up to third in FIFA rankings

[avonspurs]

• England have risen to their best ever position in the Fifa world rankings.

Source: BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19177783)

Roy Hodgson's side have moved to third above Uruguay, whose 2011 Copa America victory has lost value in Fifa's system used to determine rankings.

Wales moved up one place into 37th, Scotland arrested their slide from the last rankings to reach 46th, while Northern Ireland went up one to 101st.

The Republic of Ireland, who lost all three group matches at Euro 2012, stayed in 26th.

England progressed to the knockout stage of Euro 2012 after they topped their group, but were unable to end their 16-year wait to reach the last four of a major competition as they lost on penalties to Italy at the quarter-final stage.

The Fifa world rankings are compiled every month, with ranking points accumulated according to results, the importance of the matches played and the strength of opposing teams.

World and European champions Spain have retained a comfortable lead at the top ahead of Euro 2012 semi-finalists Germany.

Five-times world champions Brazil, who do not have to qualify for the 2014 World Cup as hosts, continued their fall and have reached a record low of 13th.

The decline is due to the fact that they have played less top-level matches in 2012 than some of the other leading nations, and despite reaching the final at London 2012, their ranking will not receive a major boost in September as the Olympics is not a points-scoring competition

 

[mpickard2087]

 

[dav3j]

Ten places above Brazil? Yeah, this isn't a massively flawed system at all...

 

[antiloqus]

Seriously, who are we bribing?

 

[talkshowhost86]

Good to see that our skills in crushing Sweden and Ukraine have been recognised. You don't beat teams like Sweden without being at least 3rd best in the world so fair enough.

It does seem like the more boring and predictable England get, the higher their ranking goes. With that trend in mind, we should appoint Alex Mcleish as manager immediately and we'll be number 1 in weeks.

 

[Kingellesar]

Great to be number 3 in the world and have absolutely fuck all to show for it. Excellent stuff.

 

[cwy21]

Ten places above Brazil? Yeah, this isn't a massively flawed system at all...

They won't play a competitive game for 2 years so theres not much they can do to avoid falling.

 

[OmarsComing]

Great to be number 3 in the world and have absolutely fuck all to show for it. Excellent stuff.

similar to Andy Murray

 

[SteveH]

Remember this is FIFA.

 

[Davo99]

It's about time we got the recognition we deserve for our World Cup win 46 years ago.

 

[ShelfSide18]

People who moan about this in disbelief obviously have never read how they decide the rankings, how do people suggest they get ranked? I imagine their may be a better way of doing it, but it's not as if there's a committee of blokes plucking the rankings from out of their arse is it?

 

[cwy21]

People who moan about this in disbelief obviously have never read how they decide the rankings, how do people suggest they get ranked? I imagine their may be a better way of doing it, but it's not as if there's a committee of blokes plucking the rankings from out of their arse is it?

Nope. Its all formula. Sure it throws out some strange results but its hard to have a formula that compares Brazil v Spain v Germany, while also comparing USA v Switzerland v Japan, while also comparing St. Lucia, Bangledesh, and Djibouti.

Plus as I showed last month when this same thread was made. England has lost 2 of its past 26 competitive games. Also remember that why they moved up to 3rd is because Uruguay's Copa America win lost half of its value since it moved out of the past 12 month period.

 

[jamesc0le]

CRINGE fb FACEPALM

 

[talkshowhost86]

People who moan about this in disbelief obviously have never read how they decide the rankings, how do people suggest they get ranked? I imagine their may be a better way of doing it, but it's not as if there's a committee of blokes plucking the rankings from out of their arse is it?

I think the point is that it's a complete waste of time even doing it. If Fifa have created a system which suggests that England are the third best team in the world then what is the point at all of that system?

I think we are now genuinely outside the top 10 (and possibly lower than that) so having a system in place that suggests we're 3rd, particularly after our worst tournament performance ever, is just ludicrous and pointless.

 

[Marty]

I think the point is that it's a complete waste of time even doing it. If Fifa have created a system which suggests that England are the third best team in the world then what is the point at all of that system?

I think we are now genuinely outside the top 10 (and possibly lower than that) so having a system in place that suggests we're 3rd, particularly after our worst tournament performance ever, is just ludicrous and pointless.

Come on now, we won the fucking group, beating Sweden in a good game and Ukraine with a huge slice of luck and drawing with France. I agree that England are probably just outside the top 10 in the world but this tournament was much better than 2010.

And it's our record of getting into the tournaments almost without losing a competitive game that has put us third. It is a faulty system but even the alternative system some people band around still has us in the top 10, so no system is anywhere near perfect. And the main function of the system is seeding groups both for qualifiers and tournaments, which FIFA need to avoid France, England, Germany and Italy, for example, drawing each other in the same WCQ group.

 

[talkshowhost86]

Come on now, we won the fucking group, beating Sweden in a good game and Ukraine with a huge slice of luck and drawing with France. I agree that England are probably just outside the top 10 in the world but this tournament was much better than 2010.

And it's our record of getting into the tournaments almost without losing a competitive game that has put us third. It is a faulty system but even the alternative system some people band around still has us in the top 10, so no system is anywhere near perfect. And the main function of the system is seeding groups both for qualifiers and tournaments, which FIFA need to avoid France, England, Germany and Italy, for example, drawing each other in the same WCQ group.

Okay you're right that it wasn't as bad as 2010. So what we're actually saying is we're 3rd after our worst two tournaments ever

England haven't been close to being the third best team in the world since 1990. These rankings are absolutely ludicrous.

 

[Arnoldtoo]

Great to be number 3 in the world and have absolutely fuck all to show for it. Excellent stuff.

similar to Andy Murray

Similar, but different.

I haven't got a picture of his, so far, $21,000,000 prize money.

 

[cockjol]

I can only assume the rankings are decided by Blatter being blindfolded while throwing darts at a dartboard...expect him to hit a treble 20 soon enough and we will plummet down to 60th after a draw against Italy next week

 

[SugarRay]

Okay you're right that it wasn't as bad as 2010. So what we're actually saying is we're 3rd after our worst two tournaments ever

England haven't been close to being the third best team in the world since 1990. These rankings are absolutely ludicrous.

Euro 96 team wasn't a million miles off such a position, neither was our euro 2004 side. Both these teams should have won them tournaments.

 

[talkshowhost86]

Euro 96 team wasn't a million miles off such a position, neither was our euro 2004 side. Both these teams should have won them tournaments.

In Euro 96 we played well in 2 games. Let's not forget we drew three games in that tournament and only narrowly beat Scotland.

As for Euro 2004...I think the results speak for themselves.

We may have had some good individuals but in no way were we close to being the third best team in the world.