USA 5th in latest FIFA rankings

[Fallen Hero]

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LOL, the scenario you describe is funny for so many reasons.

1. You assume US would probably finish ahead of Portugal



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Quite right, this is utterly preposterous. It would never <a href="c" target="_blank">happen.</a>

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compare that portuguese team with this one. And even with that crappy portuguese team you were a couple of minutes from being out of the next round, you didn't really help your case.


EDIT: most US fans are acting like we're saying you don't have a shot or that you're a mediocre team. That's not true at all, surprises happen every year, what we're saying is that Italy and the Czech are big favourites to move on.

[pudley4]

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LOL, the scenario you describe is funny for so many reasons.

1. You assume US would probably finish ahead of Portugal



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Quite right, this is utterly preposterous. It would never <a href="c" target="_blank">happen.</a>

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compare that portuguese team with this one. And even with that crappy portuguese team you were a couple of minutes from being out of the next round, you didn't really help your case.


EDIT: most US bandwagon jumpers who don't really understand soccer at all are acting like we're saying you don't have a shot or that you're a mediocre team. That's not true at all, surprises happen every year, what we're saying is that Italy and the Czech are big favourites to move on.

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Too many people are headline-fans, and have no knowledge about the actual sport (this goes for the major sports here too).

It's clear the US is the 3rd best team in its group. It's clear the US is in one of the toughest groups. It's clear the US and Mexico are very close in talent, and would, if they were switched, have very similar expectations to what we see now.

[Silent A]

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LOL, the scenario you describe is funny for so many reasons.

1. You assume US would probably finish ahead of Portugal



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Quite right, this is utterly preposterous. It would never happen.

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Agg, I didn't say that. It's not that any of of his assumptions are preposterous, it's that all of them are less than likely. Together, they're preposterous.

[KDawg]

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LOL, the scenario you describe is funny for so many reasons.

1. You assume US would probably finish ahead of Portugal



[/ QUOTE ]

Quite right, this is utterly preposterous. It would never <a href="c" target="_blank">happen.</a>

[/ QUOTE ]

compare that portuguese team with this one. And even with that crappy portuguese team you were a couple of minutes from being out of the next round, you didn't really help your case.


EDIT: most US bandwagon jumpers who don't really understand soccer at all are acting like we're saying you don't have a shot or that you're a mediocre team. That's not true at all, surprises happen every year, what we're saying is that Italy and the Czech are big favourites to move on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Too many people are headline-fans, and have no knowledge about the actual sport (this goes for the major sports here too).

It's clear the US is the 3rd best team in its group. It's clear the US is in one of the toughest groups. It's clear the US and Mexico are very close in talent, and would, if they were switched, have very similar expectations to what we see now.

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bingo. What the US really lacks is a world class player. Look at how Germany rode Ballack's back pretty much all the way to the final in 02. I am an american, but I also know what's up, and I bear no illusions of us getting into the second round. Until we develop a top flight striker or attacking mid, we can never expect to get much further then the second round and sometimes quarters(with a good draw)

[.Alex.]

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compare that portuguese team with this one. And even with that crappy portuguese team you were a couple of minutes from being out of the next round, you didn't really help your case.


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Portugal was a trendy pick to win the cup that year.

[Silent A]

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compare that portuguese team with this one. And even with that crappy portuguese team you were a couple of minutes from being out of the next round, you didn't really help your case.


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Portugal was a trendy pick to win the cup that year.

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It is also, the one and only time the US has ever beat a top 10 team in a real match (edit: oops, forgot that US/England 1950 WC match). As such, it probably represents the peak of US soccer achievement. Their high FIFA ranking is due to it playing far more matches than most.

For example, since Jan 2005, this is how many matches various teams have played:

Mexico 32
US 27
Argentina 18
Brazil 17
Italy 14
Czech Rep 13
Portugal 13
Spain 13
England 12
France 12
the Netherlands 12

The FIFA rankings are heavily biased towards teams that play more often. There are two reasons for this:

1) you often get points for losing matches (winner just gets more)
2) The final ranking is based on the average of a country's best 7 results and all their matches. For a team that plays 14 matches (like most of Europe) their best 7 matches have an effective weighting of 3 and the rest 1. If you play 28, the best 7 matches are weighted 5 to 1.

[Fallen Hero]

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compare that portuguese team with this one. And even with that crappy portuguese team you were a couple of minutes from being out of the next round, you didn't really help your case.


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Portugal was a trendy pick to win the cup that year.

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I know, but they changed their coach (and therefor most of the great team they had in the euro cup in 2000), plenty of internal problems, etc. They were very poor in that tournament.

[srjunkacct]

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Too many people are headline-fans, and have no knowledge about the actual sport (this goes for the major sports here too).

It's clear the US is the 3rd best team in its group. It's clear the US is in one of the toughest groups. It's clear the US and Mexico are very close in talent, and would, if they were switched, have very similar expectations to what we see now.

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It's also clear that being handicapped as the 3rd-ranked team in its group behind two "big favorites" means a hell of a lot less in the World Cup than in a lot of other tournaments, given the paucity of goals and the brevity of the event.

Discount the 2002 World Cup wins against Portugal and Mexico if you like, but the US came damn close to beating Germany in the quarters as well (1-0 loss, lots of great scoring chances for the US, especially at the end of the match, and a blown handball no-call in Germany's own box). And the US is probably stronger now than in 2002.

Italy and the Czech Republic may be favored, but I doubt either of them feels comfortable. And besides, not having Dominik Hasek available has to hurt the Czechs' chances quite a bit.

[srjunkacct]

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Agg, I didn't say that. It's not that any of of his assumptions are preposterous, it's that all of them are less than likely. Together, they're preposterous.

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If that's not what you meant, okay. But the former seemed like a reasonable interpretation of your previous post.

[kolotoure]

Italy are better then the USA in every area of the field and it's not even close