Purogamer said:
The problem is there are only a few true dominant teams here, which is why the US got such a high ranking. Who could have been ranked ahead of them? Look at the 16 teams left, on paper the US should be better than most of these teams...
You've got to be kidding! How about Spain, Portugal, France, Argentina, England, Italy, Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland just to name a few. According to FIFA:
"Taken into consideration for the ranking are all international-A match results over a time span of the last eight years:
* World Cup finals matches
* World Cup preliminary matches
* FIFA Confederations Cup matches
* Continental championship final matches
* Continental championship preliminary matches
* Friendly matches
The ranking list is produced by a computer program which assigns a team points for every match, according to clearly defined criteria. The factors taken into consideration are:
1. Winning, drawing and losing
2. Number of goals
3. Home or away match
4. Importance of the match (multiplication factor)
5. Regional strength (multiplication factor)
For each team only the seven best results per year are given full weighting. Results from the past are given progressively less weighting year by year until after eight years they are dropped completely. In this way current success is rated more highly than past results. "
Since Mexico is the only other quality team in the CONCACAF region, it would seem like factor #5 would drop them down. Again, over the last two years, the only quality team they've beaten has been Mexico.