***NOTE: This is one of my last-ditch efforts to purge summer distractions from my mind before returning to the classroom. Thus, if you’re looking for more thoughts on education, gimme a week or so. This is pure diversion.
If college football fans believe the rankings of the Bowl Championship Series are ludicrous, they should check out how the rest of the world assesses “football”.
FIFA, the international body that governs all national soccer teams, issued its latest rankings last Wednesday on the heels of the captivating Women’s World Cup. These rankings for national women’s teams generally comply with most fans’ perceptions of who consistently plays the best soccer, so despite Japan’s besting the U.S. in that World Cup Final weeks ago, the Americans earned FIFA’s top place on the chart, followed by Germany (two-time defending World Cup champs before this year), Brazil, then the Japanese.
Alas, the same cannot be said for the men’s sides. I’m admittedly new to the outrage, but I find FIFA’s handling of international soccer results absolutely puzzling. I’ve read their description of their formula; I’m still at a loss. It appears the association actually takes exhibition matches into account, and though they are weighted lower than FIFA tournaments, these so-called “friendlies” will, for quite a few nations, far surpass the total of games they play in such tournaments, which generally require teams to qualify for berths.
I tried to take a broad, sympathetic view and surveyed all of the soccer tournaments that occur on a regular rotation. FIFA hosts World Cups for two youth divisions – Under-17 and Under-20 – every two years (men in odd years, women in the evens). That’s in addition to two quadrennial meets for full national teams – the World Cup and the Confederations Cup, which is played the year prior by the reigning World Cup champion, the host nation, and the champion of each of the planet’s six regions. Add the Olympics, which are limited to players age 23 and under for men’s teams, and we can turn to a total of seven global tournaments over a four-year span. FIFA claims to consider all these tournaments in their calculations, but they also weight opponents from certain regions as more difficult than others. This tipping of the scales seems to really throw things off, as Europe and South America seem to benefit quite heavily.
As a means of comparing and reconciling all of this, I devised a simple formula for calculating a national program’s points and compiling my own soccer rankings. It factored in the seven international tournaments described above, allotting all teams who qualified for said tournaments one point apiece, adding two points for advancing to the elimination stage, then adding a point for each win during said “knockout” stage. The two quadrennial FIFA cups – the only competitions that allow teams to field full national teams with no age limits – carried some bonus points: two points for playing in the Confederations tournament, three points for a World Cup berth.
After surveying all results from the Beijing Olympics through the currently under-way Under-20 World Cup in Colombia, my results for the top ten soccer nations share six countries with the FIFA’s top ten: Brazil, Spain, Uruguay, Germany, Argentina, and the Netherlands. I also had Italy 11th, so that’s a wash, too. Of the remaining seven countries that occupy one list but not the other, here are my thoughts:
USA – 4th for me, FIFA 30th
Starting with the Beijing Games, the United States soccer program earned berths in eight consecutive global tournaments and advanced beyond the preliminary stage in all but two of them. The undoubted highlight of that remarkable run was the 2nd place finish at the last Confederations Cup. Truthfully, that tournament is a bit of an aberration, as the Yankees are just 1-4 in the “knock-out” stages through all these global tournaments. Nonetheless, I count no more than six – not twenty-nine – national teams who have even played that many elimination games in that span.
(American fans can also take note that the men’s team, just last week, replaced its maligned head coach Bob Bradley with German-national-team-star-turned-California-resident Jurgen Klinsmann.)
Nigeria – 7th for me, FIFA 43rd
How does Argentina rank 10th for FIFA (6th on my chart) while the African team dubbed the Eagles sits beneath the top forty? Both of these finalists from the Beijing games have missed the Confederations Cup and one youth World Cup since those Olympiad. They’ve also stalled in elimination stages of tournaments – Nigeria hasn’t reached the quarterfinals anywhere since 2009 while Argentina has only done so once in the same span. I’d expect the South Americans to get the edge between the two on that score, but are the Eagles really 36 spots below them just for that?
Mexico – 8th for me, FIFA 20th
Our neighbors to the south are getting hosed a bit, too, and 2011 is quickly shaping up to be a banner year for El Tri. After flattening the US in this year’s Gold Cup Final (as they did two years earlier), Mexico won the Under-17 World Cup. Does FIFA recognize the momentum of this program? Sadly, no – according to their math, the Mexicans are falling down the chart. They were ninth in the world as recently as last month. And wait until you see which sides replaced them in the top ten.
England – 15th for me, FIFA 6th
I will never understand the admiration heaped upon the Englishmen. They haven’t sniffed a World Cup semi-final in decades, and they had exactly two global tournament berths from 2008-2010. The youth cups this year seem to be a bit kinder to them, but given that they only reached the quarterfinals of the Under-17 Cup and have yet to score a goal through two matches in the Under-20, a place among the planet’s top half-dozen seems premature at best.
South Korea – 10th for me, FIFA 28th
They reached the quarterfinals of both youth cups in 2009, a feat matched only by then-reigning World Cup champion Italy. They advanced to the knock-out rounds of the 2010 World Cup, which puts them in the top sixteen for that tournament. Apparently, though, there are a dozen other soccer nations that surpass the quality of the South Koreans, including two that aren’t nearly as busy on the global stage.
Portugal – 23rd for me, FIFA 7th
I’m not even close to a die-hard European soccer follower, and even I know Portugal carries a heavy reputation as a potential threat that never seems to pull it together. Eliminated in the first knock out game in the previous World Cup, that tournament was actually their first global meet in three years. They also missed last month’s Under-17 cup. But look, they sit right next to Spain! So I guess FIFA believes in greatness by osmosis.
Croatia – 1 point for me, FIFA 9th
This one truly baffles me. The current Under-20 tournament is Croatia’s first global soccer competition in at least four years. No Olympics, no youth cups, no World Cup qualification in that time. Nothing. Maybe it’s the checkerboard jerseys – they are pretty cool to stare at, and they make handy tablecloths for picnics. Well, they must be the champions of Europe, right? Oh, no – just a quarterfinalist in the last tournament…in 2008.
I will end on this somewhat educational note, though. My brother once remarked, after reading a blog months ago, that while history and literature are certainly subject to debate, math and science really aren't. After this little research project, I think I must disagree. And he's a college football fan, too!
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