England are the 4th best team in the world *snigger*.

SlickRic

no joke.

and FIFA don't lie, so it's the damn truth

England have risen two places to fourth in the Fifa world rankings despite their Euro 2012 quarter-final exit.

European champions Spain remain number one, while beaten finalists Italy - who knocked England out on penalties - go up six places to sixth.

The 2014 World Cup hosts Brazil drop out of the top 10 for the first time, falling five spots to 11th.

Wales remain 38th, Scotland are ranked 49th - down eight places - while Northern Ireland move up one to 102nd.

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.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18703497

Ireland are down 8 to 26th.

Brazil are out of the top 10.

Paul Tergat

Sigh

Melion

Can someone explain the methods behind this? England in 4th while EC finalists are 6th is baffling

NinjaK

what a farce, they shouldnt be in the top 10

Paul Tergat

Melion wrote: »

Can someone explain the methods behind this? England in 4th while EC finalists are 6th is baffling

Its based over a number of years isnt it so Englands poor performance in not qualifying for Euro 08 will be wiped out and be replaced by a quarter final whereas Italy replace a quarter final from 08 to a final from now, i.e. less points difference. I think its 4 years isnt it?

shrewdness

Does Gareth Crooks do these rankings?

Cokeistan

Makes absolutely no sense really. It's not as if they managed to beat any teams that were higher ranked than them at the euro's either

homerjay2005

Melion wrote: »

Can someone explain the methods behind this? England in 4th while EC finalists are 6th is baffling

well england only jumped 2 places, whereas Italy jumped 6. records will also show that England won 2 games in the Euros and Italy beat Germany and Ireland, drawing with Croatia, England and Spain.

i think friendlies also count, so Italy losing 3 before hand, england winning both of theirs also helps, added to the fact that England practically always top their qualifying groups and beat spain a few months ago...

it all helps.

Fr Tod Umptious

Paul Tergat wrote: »

Sigh

Sigh is right,
Do we gave to go through this every time England are up in the rankings. ?

It's all based on a mathematical formula, with various weighting given based on who you win or loos to, whether it's friendly or competitive etc.

And it's the same formula that has had Ireland go up in the rankings in the past few years
A mathematical formula is the only fair way to do any rankings as anything else would be subjective and possibly biased.

Paul Tergat

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Sigh is right,
Do we gave to go through this every time England are up in the rankings. ?

It's all based on a mathematical formula, with various weighting given based on who you win or loos to, whether it's friendly or competitive etc.

And it's the same formula that has had Ireland go up in the rankings in the past few years
A mathematical formula is the only fair way to do any rankings as anything else would be subjective and possibly biased.

Im English myself and sighing at how a system can possibly indicate we are 4th best in the world

Francie Barrett

Over 90 minutes, England were unbeaten in the Euro's. I guess that would account for the jump.

stovelid

At least when Ireland suffer an unprecedented European Championship humiliation, we still have the Brits to snigger at.

cgpg5

Gave me a good laugh this morning I must admit.

kitakyushu

I'd be more bothered by Ireland not getting anything out of the Euros than of what England did.

The multiplier effect in the finals means you can pick up many more points with even a drawn match. England benefited from this, we did not.

Melion

stovelid wrote: »

At least when Ireland suffer an unprecedented European Championship humiliation, we still have the Brits to snigger at.

Why? What did Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland do?

mike65

Shouldn't this thread be titled "Ireland Drop 8 Places"?

Melion

mike65 wrote: »

Shouldn't this thread be titled "Ireland Drop 8 Places"?

That wouldn't give the idiots anything to snigger at though

klose

I though wed drop more then 8, the FIFA rankings has to be the worst system ever!

Leslie91

I've long given up on listening to anything FIFA say. Until Blatter is removed I'd advise yee all do the same. Completely worthless opinion from one of the most corrupt organisations in the world.

kitakyushu

whippedcream wrote: »

I though wed drop more then 8, the FIFA rankings has to be the worst system ever!

In terms of ranking teams for seedings etc it's probably better than nothing and also better than some of what went before

eg in the draw for the 1990 World Cup qualifiers Ireland were 4th seeds (despite having just qualified for Euro 88 , and subsequently finishing 5th). So basically you had arguably the 5th best team in Europe considered a 4th seed team for the next tournament.

That said tho the FIFA rankings is still fairly rubbish and could probably be revised (eg stop worry so much about friendlies and work out some way of giving points even in a lost games).

For instance If Ireland hadn't even played in this tournament and just played a couple friendlies against Hungary or whoever then we wouldn't have dropped as much this month. That was our reward for making it to the last 16.

Fr Tod Umptious

Leslie91 wrote: »

I've long given up on listening to anything FIFA say. Until Blatter is removed I'd advise yee all do the same. Completely worthless opinion from one of the most corrupt organisations in the world.

But the rankings are not 'opinion'

They are calculated based on facts

Big Pussy Bonpensiero

What would people's rankings be? My top 5 anyways would have Spain, Germany, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, with Portugal, Italy, Holland and Croatia not too far behind. England would be around 15th and Ireland around 30th.

kryogen

The system is flawed, we all know this yet there is always surprise at the latest rankings, why?

Brazil being 11th is funny as hell sure, and Uruguay being 3rd is equally as amusing, they don't actually matter like.

kitakyushu

England play like a team in the teens or 20's but their results are much better than that. They had 4 wins and 2 draws since Woy took over and they exited Euro 2012 undefeated with 2 wins and 2 draws and on paper (which is how this FIFA guff is arrived at) would be considered 5th place at Euro2012.

I think getting 4th place in the FIFA rankings is just good fortune due to a combination of factors, eg the rapid dropout of Holland and Brazil and the fact that the finalist this year (Italy) didn't impact the top 4 themselves with their fine run.

All that said I'd have England in and around the top 10 myself, tho certainly not 4th.

SlickRic

mike65 wrote: »

Shouldn't this thread be titled "Ireland Drop 8 Places"?

yes.

but i titled it as i did because it's far more ridiculous sounding than Ireland dropping places as a result of losing all our Euro 2012 games.

i care far more about Ireland, but that wasn't much of a story IMO.

Big Pussy Bonpensiero

kryogen wrote: »

The system is flawed, we all know this yet there is always surprise at the latest rankings, why?

Brazil being 11th is funny as hell sure, and Uruguay being 3rd is equally as amusing, they don't actually matter like.

Not totally unreasonable imo, last year they won the Copa America, and the year before that they reached the semi-finals of the world cup. Right now they're unbeaten in world cup qualifying and 1 point off top spot with a game in hand. Seems like a reasonable ranking tbh.

mike65

SlickRic wrote: »

yes.

but i titled it as i did because it's far more ridiculous sounding than Ireland dropping places as a result of losing all our Euro 2012 games.

i care far more about Ireland, but that wasn't much of a story IMO.

There is a job as a sub-ed on a tabloid waiting for you somewhere!

kryogen

I guess its not as amusing as Brazil being ranked behind Denmark, I certainly would not consider them the 3rd best team in the world though.

The rankings are a joke generally though and not to be taken too seriously

I exaggerated how amusing it was admittedly

Skid

kryogen wrote: »

The system is flawed, we all know this yet there is always surprise at the latest rankings, why?

Brazil being 11th is funny as hell sure, and Uruguay being 3rd is equally as amusing, they don't actually matter like.

They certainly do - every World Cup and Euro Qualification draw is seeded based on these bizarre rankings.

Only the World Cup draw, not the Euro.

ArmaniJeanss

Skid wrote: »

They certainly do - every World Cup and Euro Qualification draw is seeded based on these bizarre rankings.

The FIFA World rankings aren't used for any Euros qualification draw.

kitakyushu

kryogen wrote: »

I guess its not as amusing as Brazil being ranked behind Denmark,

It has been known to happen from time to time. :pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXLt9cjfjJQ

kryogen

Skid wrote: »

They certainly do - every World Cup and Euro Qualification draw is seeded based on these bizarre rankings.

Ok, but they don't actually matter when it comes to deciding who is the best, they matter for some seedings, which is unfortunate, but they are not a perfect view of how the teams in the world rank

ArmaniJeanss

FIFA do a generally decent job with the rankings imo. But its a largely impossible task.

What makes it hugely problematical though is all the confederations are on a different cycle of games.

Europe and Africa have a neat two year cycle of qualification games followed by a tournament.
South America however only have one qualification tournament every 4 years, so teams like Columbia and Peru who failed in their last World Cup qualifiers in September 2009 wont have had another competive game until the Copa in July 2011, 21 months of friendlies.
CONCACAF is similar, and so was Asia though it's going down the route of having more of its teams involved in qualifying for its own confederation competition, previously there were lots of automatic qualifers.

And at any one time around 15/20 countries are in the situation where they have either just hosted a competition, or are about to host the next one, and thus have a deficit of competitive games vis a vis other teams.

kitakyushu

Brazil are already 11th now and don't get any world cup qualifiers to play. The next Copa America is not til 2015. It'll be interesting to see what their Fifa ranking is by the time WC2014 begins.

Skid

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

The FIFA World rankings aren't used for any Euros qualification draw.

Cheers, I didn't know that.

ArmaniJeanss

kitakyushu wrote: »

Brazil are already 11th now and don't get any world cup qualifiers to play. The next Copa America is not til 2015. It'll be interesting to see what their Fifa ranking is by the time WC2014 begins.

They do get a Confederations Cup to play next summer at home which counts as competitive games, so that should be an opportunity to shore up their rankings.

citytillidie

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

The FIFA World rankings aren't used for any Euros qualification draw.

No but Uefa have there own system

Here is the rankings for the Euro 2012 qualification draw

http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/uefa/KeyTopics/92/18/20/921820_DOWNLOAD.pdf

And as you can see from the below link they use the FIFA rankings for seeding and pot allocations for World Cup qualification

http://www.uefa.com/worldcup/news/newsid=1654197.html

Gandalph

Some guy in the FIFA offices must of been drunk when he was crunching those numbers

Fr Tod Umptious

kitakyushu wrote: »

Brazil are already 11th now and don't get any world cup qualifiers to play. The next Copa America is not til 2015. It'll be interesting to see what their Fifa ranking is by the time WC2014 begins.

It will not matter much either because as hosts they will be a top seed, regardless of ranking

Tox56

They were unbeaten in Euro 2012, unbeaten in Euro 2012 qualifying, 1 loss in 2010 World Cup and only 1 loss in the 2010 World Cup qualifying. Throw in a host of friendly wins and it's a pretty good record.

The numbers don't account for style, or that Italy outplayed England in the Euros, or that Spain outplayed England in that friendly win.

Obviously not the 4th best team in the world though, not even close to being the 4th best team in the Euros.

LuckyLloyd

Gandalph wrote: »

Some guy in the FIFA offices must of been drunk when he was crunching those numbers

They have a system. You may not like it, but it's something they've been using for a long time and it's better than nothing imo. Very difficult job ranking all of the teams in the world on a given day...

aidan24326

It would be easy to dismiss these rankings as meaningless but they use them to decide seedings for qualifying groups, so they do matter even if the system they use is clearly flawed. England in 4th is a bit of a joke though. I reckon about 15th would be a more accurate reflection of where they're at. Can't resist a snigger at our northern cousins being ranked 102.

28064212

Nowhere does FIFA claim these rankings are supposed to represent the best football team at a particular point in time. The rankings represent the team which has gotten the best results over the last four years. At this, it is quite a good ranking

Beefy78

I saw the headline on the BBC and thought to myself "I wonder what the Boards reaction to this will be....."

To be fair, if you look at the points, England are nowhere near the top two, as is right. We've profited from a bunch of teams losing a lot of points this month. Italy and Portugal have gained a lot of points from the tournament and will likely sail past England in the next two or three months.

Germany and Spain are by far the best two teams in World Football right now. Then there's a pack of mediocre sides with mediocre players and mediocre results who are pretty interchangable. England are in that pack.

This comes up every time England's rankings rise. Look at the methodology behind the rankings, which is in the public domain, and please advise which part of it you don't agree with. As has been said, it's a ranking of results not a statement of who would beat who. In the four years which the rankings cover, England will have lost two competative games, one of which they played with ten men for most of.

Coillte_Bhoy

Melion wrote: »

Why? What did Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland do?

Since when did NI become part of Britain?

briany

I thought that England were pretty good at the Euros but like Ireland, their tactics were exposed. Unlike Ireland, however, they had a decent bunch of players but no matter how good the players were they would never have made it beyond the quarters given the draw and the handicap of playing the British style. 4th? Nah, but Ireland, 26th? I'd have the team in the high thirties. I think it's a ranking that would more accurately reflect their place in world football right now.

Jimmy Iovine

England are going to rise to 3rd in the world when the next rankings are published in August. This will be their best ever ranking.

http://www.football-rankings.info/2012/07/fifa-ranking-august-2012-preview.html

Beefy78

This is a very proud day for me, lads.

kitakyushu

By reaching 3rd place England may finally consider themselves one of the worlds top teams and compare themselves favourably to many of the other great nations that have previously occupied the lofty position (eg Croatia, Czech Rep, Denmark , Norway, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland).

Beefy78

It's the Hodgson effect. He took the Swiss to third and now he's done it for England. What a guy.

kitakyushu

You don't mind if we poach him for Ireland some day?

You see I feel slightly deprived having only ever experienced the dizzy heights of sixth.