Viewing Thread:
"New FIFA World Rankings"

1 (1) Brazil
2 (2) France
3 (3) Spain
4 (4) Argentina
5 (8) Mexico
6 (5) Netherlands
7 (8) Turkey
8 (6) England
9 (7) Germany
10 (11) Czech Republic
11 (8) Italy
12 (12) United States
13 (14) Denmark
14 (13) Cameroon
15 (15) Ireland Republic
16 (16) Belgium
17 (18) Sweden
18 (17) Portugal
19 (19) Costa Rica
20 (20) Croatia

(Last months positions in brackets.)

Baffling once again. How the heck do they actually work these out?

England: win their group for Euro 2004 by drawing in Turkey, and beat Turkey comfortably. Lost to Denmark who are ranked a respectable 13 (14) and we move down.

Yet Turkey, who lost to us and failed to beat us in their own stadium, forced to go into the play-offs and even lose to Latvia, ranked a lowly 56 (and were 69th) and they move ahead of us in the rankings?!

And how come the Netherlands are still so high up? They also failed to win their group and lost to lowly Scotland, and yet they're also still ranked higher. And they didn't even qualify for the last World Cup yet are still ranked so high up.


It reminds me of the seedings for the last World Cup; England won their group and thrashed Germany 5-1, yet they were seeded and we weren't. Crazy statistics.

Turkey did still come second in our group though, and were ahead for the majority of the last year - until we came head-to-head.
That's gotta be worth somethin' to them?

And have the qualifier's results actually been added to teams' totals yet?
Perhaps the Latvia one is irrelevant because it was played too late?