England Vs Wales

[Hoop Blah]

Interesting RR.

I think the top two, Spain and Holland, are pretty clear at the moment and you'd always fear playing the best of the rest (Germany, Argentina and Brazil).

However, and as much as the history doesn't count for much, Argentina have beaten us just once since the '66 World Cup (they've knocked us out on pens of course) and we've beaten Germany as many time as they've beaten us since 2000. We do have an appaling record against Brazil though.

Do I think the likes of Chile, Portugal, France or Italy are better than us? Not really. I'd fancy our chances against any of them on a regular basis and their recent records aren't as good as ours.

I do think it's a bit unfair to rank teams in such a way though. In the same way as positions 6-14 in the Premier League or Championship are much of a muchness I'd argue the same could be said for international football.

[RobRoyal]

Something like this:

Spain
Germany
Holland
Argentina
Brazil
Uruguay
France
Chile
Portugal
Italy
England / Mexico

Can't see what Italy, France & Portugal have done in recent memory to be above England.

How bad is your memory? They've all made a World or Euro final since 2004.

Portugal made the WC semi in 2006.

Also, unlike England none of them have failed to qualify for a tournament in the 200s.

[swansea jack]

Next Wales game is at our place.

Best keep the Swansea flags at home

^that ain't gonna happen in any circumstances.

Again, still early days but it appears those detained (now on bail) are from N. Wales and S.E. Wales. Seems to be a big love in going on between C*rdiff and us - messages of support, Swans fans donating to a fund and there may even be a fans friendly taking place although Collina may be needed to ref it. Hopefully something positive can come out of it.

[Seal]

Something like this:

Spain
Germany
Holland
Argentina
Brazil
Uruguay
France
Chile
Portugal
Italy
England / Mexico

Can't see what Italy, France & Portugal have done in recent memory to be above England.

How bad is your memory? They've all made a World or Euro final since 2004.

Portugal made the WC semi in 2006.

Also, unlike England none of them have failed to qualify for a tournament in the 200s.

How bad is your understanding of the ranking system?

FIFA Wrote:-

"Rankings are based on a team's performance over the last four years, with more recent results and more significant matches being more heavily weighted to help reflect the current competitive state of a team."

[Hoop Blah]

To be fair I was asking RR for his own personal view of what the top 10 would look like, so his methodology might be a little different to the rankings.

I agree that if you look at the last 2-4 years as a decent measure of a teams form and quality then those teams don't look any better than England though.

If you look at Englands record since 2000 it isn't really that bad. OK, we cocked up the qualifying for Euro 2008 but in the rest of the tournaments after 2000 we did ok (just OK, nothing much more) and were knocked out by very good teams and half of those defeats were by penalties.

That's a decent record for me. Obviously you'd like a semi-final or final appearance in there too, but Italy, Portugal and Argentina all had similar records to us at the last World Cup (Argies losing to Germany 4-0 in the round after us, Portugal losing at the same stage and Italy not even making it out of the group - which they finished bottom of).

[Big Foot]

To be fair I was asking RR for his own personal view of what the top 10 would look like, so his methodology might be a little different to the rankings.

I agree that if you look at the last 2-4 years as a decent measure of a teams form and quality then those teams don't look any better than England though.

If you look at Englands record since 2000 it isn't really that bad. OK, we cocked up the qualifying for Euro 2008 but in the rest of the tournaments after 2000 we did ok (just OK, nothing much more) and were knocked out by very good teams and half of those defeats were by penalties.

That's a decent record for me. Obviously you'd like a semi-final or final appearance in there too, but Italy, Portugal and Argentina all had similar records to us at the last World Cup (Argies losing to Germany 4-0 in the round after us, Portugal losing at the same stage and Italy not even making it out of the group - which they finished bottom of).

Could it be that because we didn't qualify for Euro 2008 and have our inevitable 2nd round defeat to some European backwater like Serbia; are ranking is inflated?

[papereyes]

Surely qualification for a tournament would only increase the number of points as team plays more potentially high scoring games?

[Hoop Blah]

Could it be that because we didn't qualify for Euro 2008 and have our inevitable 2nd round defeat to some European backwater like Serbia; are ranking is inflated?

Inevitable?

What's it taken to knock us out of the last 4 tournaments we've made it to?

2002 - Brazil with a fluke (admitedly that's 10 man Brazil)
2004 - Portugal on pens (the hosts too weren't they?)
2006 - Portugal on pens (after going down to 10 men on the hour)
2010 - Steam rollered by a very good German side with a valid goal chalked off at a key time.

[cmonurz]

No, had we qualified for the Euros that would have meant better qualifying ranking points, and then points gained in the championship itself.

[cmonurz]

All this talk of 2004 finals and 2006 semi finals is great, but the rankings aren't determined by results 5 or 7 years ago, or since 2000, and nor, imho, should they be.

What next, Andre Agassi hanging around the top 100 tennis players in the world?

Australia ranked no.1 cricket team forever and ever?

[papereyes]

Any system that awards more points for failing to qualify than it does for qualifying is far more flawed that what already exists.

[RobRoyal]

How bad is your understanding of the ranking system?

FIFA Wrote:-

"Rankings are based on a team's performance over the last four years, with more recent results and more significant matches being more heavily weighted to help reflect the current competitive state of a team."

Not sure what FIFA's ranking system has to do with what RR considers the best teams in the world to be. Given that your questions were why those teams are above England - well, in the FIFA system they aren't.

[Royal Rother]

Something like this:

Spain
Germany
Holland
Argentina
Brazil
Uruguay
France
Chile
Portugal
Italy
England / Mexico

Can't see what Italy, France & Portugal have done in recent memory to be above England.

Likewise Argentina, who are even more of a let down than England when you look at their team on paper.

Chile have had a good run but ultimately come up short against the top opposition.

I'd go for:

Spain
Germany
Holland
Uruguay
Brazil
England
Argentina
Italy
Portugal
France

Perhaps I place too much importance on the last meeting of the teams but France absolutely slaughtered us last year but they have also beaten Brazil this year.

Italy have drawn with Germany, beaten Slovenia twice, Ukraine and Spain this year.

In the last 12 months Portugal have beaten Denmark, Iceland, Spain, Norway, Finland amongst others.

England have beaten Wales twice, Bulgaria, Denmark and drawn with Ghana and Switzerland.

Maybe I'm being harsh on England because I have watched many of our games over the years (and so much of it has been boring, disjointed and generally shite imo) but putting us behind the others mentioned above does not seem unreasonable.

[Royal Rother]

To be fair I was asking RR for his own personal view of what the top 10 would look like, so his methodology might be a little different to the rankings.

Indeed. And we all prefer judgements based on observation rather than a statistical assessment don't we...?

[ZacNaloen]

England need to play more friendlies against teams of similar quality, I imagine that half of what happens is that we are so used to playing lesser teams that we get into bad habits and when it comes to playing the sides at our level they take advantage of it all.

[papereyes]

England need to play more friendlies against teams of similar quality, I imagine that half of what happens is that we are so used to playing lesser teams that we get into bad habits and when it comes to playing the sides at our level they take advantage of it all.

There is a certain truth to that.

I can't remember who posted it and when but it was a list of teams England had beaten when they qualified for a tournament and who they equated to in the league at that time. Ranked from 100 and something upwards.

Hammer the bad teams and get bad habits. What happens when you play the first team that can keep the ball and hammer you on the break?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuoEscn4gBI

[Hoop Blah]

England need to play more friendlies against teams of similar quality, I imagine that half of what happens is that we are so used to playing lesser teams that we get into bad habits and when it comes to playing the sides at our level they take advantage of it all.

I was thinking that when I was looking at the other teams loses. It feels like we don't push ourselves enough but I guess that's probably because our clubs are so powerful the FA don't want to have tougher games as friendlies and either exert the players too much (boohoo) or suffer too many defeats due to weakened sides.

However, since Jan 2010 we've played Mexico, France, Denmark, Ghana (lots of peoples outside bet for the World Cup) amongst our friendlies. That's not actually too bad a line up. Go back a bit further to Jan 2009 and we've played the Dutch, Spanish and Brazil in friendlies.

There is probably a lot of politics in which sides we play too. Having a game at Wembley means a lot to a lot of foreign FAs.

To be fair I was asking RR for his own personal view of what the top 10 would look like, so his methodology might be a little different to the rankings.

Indeed. And we all prefer judgements based on observation rather than a statistical assessment don't we...?

Too right!! Rankings make for interesting discussion (to a point!) but like a league table or any statistical, doesn't always make for the right outcome.

[cmonurz]

But we do play good teams in friendlies.

2010 - France
2009 - Brazil, Holland, Spain
2008 - France
2007 - Germany, Brazil, Spain
2006 - Holland
2005 - Argentina, Holland
2004 - Spain, Portugal

and so on.

Sure, we don't beat Brazil very much. But we don't lose to some of the teams that they do. And so on. I'm struggling to get the continued discussion of the merits of a system that gives points for every match played, and weights those points against the strength of the opposition and importance of the competition.

[RobRoyal]

But we do play good teams in friendlies.

2010 - France
2009 - Brazil, Holland, Spain
2008 - France
2007 - Germany, Brazil, Spain
2006 - Holland
2005 - Argentina, Holland
2004 - Spain, Portugal

and so on.

+ Holland and Spain to come.

[Seal]

Maybe it's just that the global standard of football is currently pretty poor? Or that modern day tactics and the familiarity of players due to the UCL and the number of foreign players in each league means that there's not much to distinguish international teams?

And to be honest the last 2-3 years have essentially been ranked as follows:-

1) Spain
-------------
2) Everyone else

Holland are now ranked no.1 and got to the WC final but were dominated in the match itself. Germany were easily disposed of in the semis.

So it probably doesn't matter if we're ranked #4 or #10, we'll still lose to Spain at some point.

They'll probably win EURO 2012, but by 2014 Xavi, maybe Puyol and a few others will be past their peak and Germany, ourselves, Brazil and a couple of others will have a chance.