THE WORLD'S WORST
Look at STEVE CUMBER takes a closer of the those national teams at the bottom FIFA world rankings…
The national team also-rans
THERE was much indignant huffing and puffing back in October when England drew away to Slovenia in their World Cup qualifying match.
The problem seemed not to be that England had drawn but that it was to a team ranked 67th in the FIFA rankings, a team who had the same number of ranking points as Burkina Faso.
This was incredibly condescending to the good folk of that African nation, but this is the British daily press we’re dealing with here, so no surprises.
In case you didn’t know, the FIFA rankings are published on a monthly basis and are based on a team’s results over the last four years.
There are some complicated formulae at work here, but basically you get points for winning or drawing a match.
After that, the strength of the opposition is taken into account, so you get more points for beating England than you do for beating, say, Malta (hard to believe I know, but there it is).
Points won over a four-year period are used to calculate the ranking, but more recent results get a higher weighting than those from the preceding years. The older the result, the less it counts.
So in the rankings published on November 24, the world’s top nation is Argentina, with 1,634 points.
Second is Brazil with 1,544 and third is Germany with 1,433. The top ten then continues with Chile, Belgium, Colombia, France, Portugal, Uruguay and Spain.Wales are 12th and England are 13th.
The highest ranked team which is not either South American or European is Costa Rica at 17th. Highest Asian team is Iran at 30th and the highest African team is Senegal at 33rd. Slovenia are up to 50th , following that excellent draw against a higher-ranked nation, and so too are Burkina Faso. The list makes fascinating reading.
Qatar, hosts of the 2022 World Cup, sit at 88th, below Antigua and Barbuda (82) and the Faroe Islands (84). Some former top nations now languish in the relative depths, such as Bulgaria at 72nd.
As in any table, some teams do well, whilst others struggle. And the FIFA rankings have their perpetual basement boys like any other league.
However, these teams are usually at the bottom for good reason, and it will take more than an injection of cash to get them up the table.
In the November rankings there are seven teams sitting at joint 205th with no points at all.
This immediately tells you that they haven’t won or drawn a game in the last four years, and for some of them the prospect of even that sort of modest success looks quite a way distant.
So who are these less than magnificent seven? And why are they there, competing for the title of worst team in the world.
They all have a reason. They are as follows:- Anguilla getting up the rankings can only be slight. Scoring the odd goal or two could be the limit of their ambition.