July Fifa Rankings Released - USA drops 12 spots

Apparently it had something to do with a retroactive devalue of last year's Copa America results... but for some we drop 12 spots, Costa Rica only drops 7. Mexico moved up a spot due to Confed Cup.

What's up with our opponent next Wednesday, Martinique, not even being ranked?

ETA: Never mind I looked it up on Wiki. Apparently there are a few CONCACAF nations that aren't members of FIFA. Weird.

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We beat 3 of those teams at a neutral site tomorrow

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Switzerland and Poland are the only ones you can make arguments that the US would maybe win 6 if they played each other 10 times.

Everyone else in the top 8 is better than us.

To be fair, the FIFA rankings are one of the few transparent things FIFA does given that theyre based upon a fairly simple equation.

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Apparently there are a few CONCACAF nations that aren't members of FIFA. Weird.

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Overseas territories usually. Speaking of which, this Malouda thing is going to be interesting.

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meh. We're 2-2-2 against Portugal and it should be better than that

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Portugal right now would beat us more time than we'd beat them.

And it is also pretty corrupt to retroactively change the formula mid-cycle... This sudden devalue of last year's Copa results has Chile dropping from 4th to 7th despite making it to the Confederations Cup finals, with Poland and Switzerland jumping them. Now all of the sudden, Chile is in the final spot to be in pod A for the World Cup draw (top 7 plus Russia) and it'll be pretty fricked up if they drop one more spot between now and November.

FIFA rankings are faker than the pre election polls

Calling BS on #5

Copied & pasted from the FIFA website with a few bolds, underlines, and grammar corrections of my own to make the god damn thing legible:

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The basic logic of these calculations is simple:

Any team that does well in world football wins points which enable it to climb the world ranking. A team’s total number of points over a four-year period is determined by adding:

- The average number of points gained from matches during the past 12 months and
- The average number of points gained from matches older than 12 months (depreciates yearly).

Calculation of points for a single match depends on the following factors:

- Was the match won or drawn? (M)
- How important was the match, ranging from a friendly to a World Cup match? (I)
- How strong was the opposing team in terms of ranking and confederation? (T and C)
- These factors are brought together in the following formula to ascertain the total number of points (P)

P = M x I x T x C

M = Points for match result

Teams gain:

- 3 points for a victory
- 1 point for a draw
- 0 points for a defeat
- In a penalty shoot-out, the winning team gains 2 points and the losing team gains 1 point.

I = Importance of match

Friendly match (including small competitions): I = 1.0
FIFA World Cup™ qualifier or confederation-level qualifier: I = 2.5
Confederation-level final competition or FIFA Confederations Cup: I = 3.0
FIFA World Cup™ final competition: I = 4.0

T = Strength of opposing team

The strength of the opponents is based on the formula:

200 – the ranking position of the opponents

*As an exception to this formula, the team at the top of the ranking is always assigned the value 200 and the teams ranked 150th and below are assigned a minimum value of 50. The ranking position is taken from the opponents’ ranking in the most recently published FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking*


C = Strength of Confederation

When calculating matches between teams from different confederations, the mean value of the confederations to which the two competing teams belong is used. The strength of a confederation is calculated on the basis of the number of victories by that confederation at the last three FIFA World Cup™ competitions.

Their values are as follows:

CONMEBOL = 1.00
UEFA = 0.99
AFC/CAF/OFC/CONCACAF = 0.85

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I don't see what the big fuss is all about. Seems pretty cut & dry to me. Logical, concise, not overly complicated. A perfect framework for ranking all the nations of FIFA fairly and ultimately deciding which nations have the advantage of being a top 8 seed for the most important tournament in sports.