Still no respect
Fifa released their first official rankings since the conclusion of the World Cup.
Saying that the ranking criteria makes no sense would be an understatement. The biggest shock comes right at the top, with Brazil retaining the top spot despite the fact that they didn’t make it out of the quarter finals. Ukraine, a team that lost 4-0 to Spain and 3-0 to Italy, shot up 30 spots into 15th place. I think this is bloody awful, considering they only progressed to the second round because they were in the weakest group in the group stage. In comparison, Australia progressed to the second round from a much harder group, outplaying Brazil but losing and then being denied by a lousy call in the final minute against Italy, yet they only increased their position by 9 spots to number 33. I guarantee that if Australia had played Ukraine in the quarter finals, Australia would have won convincingly. Continuing with Australia, they are ranked behind Uruguay (14th), whom they beat to make the World Cup; Greece, whom they beat leading up to the World Cup; Croatia, whom they outplayed and would have beaten (instead of drawing with) if not for poor keeping and the referee calling time as John Aloisi scored a match winning goal; and Nigeria, Cameroon, Guinea, Romania, Turkey, and Egypt - all teams that failed to make the World Cup finals. Even the Ivory Coast, who scored less points in the group stage and didn’t make the second round, advance more places in the standings.
Other interesting things to take note of in these rankings: England gained 5 places to the 5th spot, while Portugal and Spain both lost places. Paraguay, another team that didn’t make it out of the group stage, moved up 12 places to 19th. One of the best teams in the tournament, Germany, only increased 10 places to 9th - they are easily good enough to be in the top 5. The U.S.A. managed to stay in the top 20, even though they scored 1 point in the group stage and only managed to score two goals (one of them an own-goal by another team).
It’s not hard to see that politics play a part in the Fifa rankings. Even after being the most surprising team in the tournament, the Socceroos can’t get any respect. If I were a cynic, I would say that the rankings reflect a conspiracy that would only magnify the horrible call they received against Italy. As it stands, Fifa needs to implement some kind of transparent rankings systems that the general public will be able to decipher.
When i first heard this on the morning news, all i could do was laugh, I agree with everything that you have said, and find it annoying that politics play a part in sport!