FIFA rankings: England 4th best in the world

http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/rankingtable/index.html

England 4th
Uruguay 16th
France 17th
Brazil 18th
Belgium 20th

FIFA

belgium went up

England 4th.

This thread is always started and everyone has a chuckle, however whilst these rankings shouldn't be taken as measures of merit, England do deserve a very decent ranking considering how solid they have been under Hodgson.

How they handle Montenegro away from home in their World Cup qualifiers will tell us more about what we need to know about the team than friendly results though, even against the most illustrious opponents.

i take a moment of silence and do my face palm
then i move on

Epoto wrote:i take a moment of silence and do my face palm
then i move on

Australia moved down as well. Stfu Holger

I give up on the rankings, friendlies should count for nothing when ranking teams in my opinion. Many major International teams use friendlies to experiment with tactics, line-ups etc and end up losing to teams they could sweep aside if they had to.

England are the masters of friendlies but can't translate any of it to the big tournaments.

England

Woy

Hoofball

Lampard

If people are criticising England for being the master of friendlies and failing in international tournaments then why is no one questioning why Argentina are third?

Because we've been kicking ass in WC qualifier matches

Also Tom friendlies count towards the least amount of points

I know bro but they still count, England hardly rack up the points in tournaments and they aren't even top of there own group. I think friendlies should have absolutely no effect on rankings. Because the whole idea of a friendly being...well... a friendly, is that it counts for nothing. Then you would have a more realistic view on which clubs were getting the best results in games which actually count for something.

What position is Nigeria ranked.? Thanks

30th for Nigeria.

4 African teams in the top 30 (3 in top 25)

nasir6371 wrote:30th for Nigeria.

4 African teams in the top 30 (3 in top 25)

Africa football is still developing, we have the players but lack good coaches and infrastructure/facilities.

Nigeria government recently pooped money into NFF and as a result there are massive improvement.


Good rating for us.

Mexico

Why are people surprised? we hardly ever lose and when we do its on penalties

Fifa Rankings is basically a league table and we get results more often than not so its hardly surprising.

Yeah

Why Argentina are third?

highburied wrote:Yeah

Why Argentina are third?

Because they have been unbeaten for over a year, as i said the Fifa Rankings is a glorified league table.

Take from it what you will.

the list seems legit to me

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

highburied wrote:Yeah

Why Argentina are third?

Because they have been unbeaten for over a year, as i said the Fifa Rankings is a glorified league table.

Take from it what you will.

What is Englands recent record?

Well deserved

England have lost twice in the past year, not counting the loss on penalties vs Italy.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Because we've been kicking ass in WC qualifier matches

Also Tom friendlies count towards the least amount of points

It would hardly be unusual for a team to shine during qualifiers only to come to nothing when everything is really on the line. I'm not for a moment suggesting that Argentina aren't a very fine team, however the arguments given are entirely subjective when we begin to draw the other teams mentioned such as France, Uruguay, Brazil and Belgium into the mix.

The rankings must be consistent in attributing merit or there is no point in stating that some positions are justified and others aren't. Otherwise it's simply a case of, to borrow Mole's phrase, the league table validating our preconceived ideas or not.

TomJuve wrote:I give up on the rankings, friendlies should count for nothing when ranking teams in my opinion. Many major International teams use friendlies to experiment with tactics, line-ups etc and end up losing to teams they could sweep aside if they had to.

England are the masters of friendlies but can't translate any of it to the big tournaments.

But if friendlies were to count for nothing, when else would a NT ever get a chance to do anything significant, if not climb the ranks a bit? I just don't get why friendlies get so much hate, and at the same time people expect a NT to do amazingly with the little time they already play together. The amount of criticism makes no sense.