England Climb One Place In FIFA Rankings! Could It Be Magic?

Ollie Irish

14th, July 2010

5 Comments

By Ollie Irish

Somehow, dismal England have risen a place in the FIFA world rankings – up to seventh – despite their abject performance in South Africa last month, which resulted in Capello’s lads being ranked 13th of the 32 teams at the World Cup – England’s worst ever WC campaign. I suppose England’s rise proves that there aren’t many decent teams in international football right now.

Portugal, who were knocked out at the same stage as England (Round of 16), dropped five places to eighth. Italy, the 2006 world champs, drop out of the top ten (11th) for the first time in a very long time, perhaps since the rankings were inagurated. Quite right too, as they were abysmal in South Africa, finishing even below New Zealand.

Egypt move into the top ten, proving that in the Crazy World of Sepp Blatter it’s not necessarily a good thing to qualify for the World Cup. Go figure.

The current top ten:

1 Spain – New world champs, up one place from 2nd

2 Holland – The losing World Cup finalists move up from 4th

3 Brazil – Knocked off the top spot after a mediocre campaign in South Africa

4 Germany – Third in South Africa, up two places

5 Argentina – Destroyed by Germany in the World Cup QFs but rise to 5th from 7th

6 Uruguay – A whopping ten-place rise after a brilliant World Cup

7 England – Up one place. Er, why?

8 Portugal – Down five places after a patchy showing in South Africa

9 Egypt – Up three places, despite not playing in the World Cup

10 Chile – Up eight spots after a relatively promising World Cup

Posted in International football

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5 Comments

  1. bill says:

    Lets prevent England from future world cup performances as dismal as the 2010 World Cup in South Africa!
    Sign the petition to get the FA moving in the right direction!
    http://www.dexysden.com/2010/07/petition-for-grassroots-overhaul-for-the-fa

  2. PhilandoTorres says:

    Apparently England are 10/1 4th favourites for Euro 2012 based on… fuck knows what.

    It’d really be better for everyone if England never qualify for another tournament ever again. Then we can enjoy the footy without the endless, unfounded backing of England for no other reason than the belief that they ‘should’ be winning, which is inevitably followed by the tedious, ill-informed and embarassing foreigner-bashing when England inevitably fail again.

  3. robin gonzalez says:

    i seriously think spain wasnt better than holland holand did most of the passing and plus spain hasnt given us a football were we can say wow their really good by making passes and making goals this yrs spain dissapointed me although they won the world cup they dissapointed me…..:(

  4. hollis says:

    FIFA rankings really make no sense whatsoever. Had Portugal in 3rd and the Netherlands in 4th going into the World Cup, despite a perfect qualification campaign from the Dutch and Portugal almost not qualifying. Friendlies should not have such an impact on rankings, which I suspect is how England managed to jump a spot.

  5. rocknrolla says:

    Egpyt? Really?

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