[Marco]

France failed by a hair's breadth to bring the long reign of the nigh invincible Brazilians to an end in the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola-World Ranking. Lagging 70 points behind a month ago when EURO 2000 started, the newly crowned European champions virtually polevaulted to the top and are now breathing heavily down the Seleçao's necks. France and Brazil are the only two teams ever to have waltzed past the 800 point mark. Other laudable winners were the EURO co-finalists Italy (6th, up 8) and semifinalists Portugal (7th, up 8) and the Netherlands (8th, up 13), all of whom gleaned at least 70 points, thus catapulting into the top ten.

June 2000 will go down in history as one of the most action packed in international football. Apart from the European championship and the Oceania National Cup, the 2002 World Cup qualifiers for CONMEBOL, CONCACAF and CAF were being contested, not to mention 75 friendlies that were also sucked into the statistics.

Hence some spectacular jostling took place outside Europe: Japan (46th, up 11) is back among the top 50, with Honduras (51st, up 11) in hot pursuit. Oceania champions Australia exacted revenge on New Zealand for the latter's defeat of them in the 1998 final (63rd, up 29).

Taking the index value, which reflects the teams' absolute strength, into account, the Netherlands, followed by Canada and Australia, are the biggest movers of the year 2000 so far.

1 Brazil
2 France
3 Czech Republic
4 Spain
4 Argentina
6 Italy
7 Portugal
8 Netherlands
9 Germany
10 Norway

 

[Razor]

Or maybe FIFA realizes that France was handed the championship .

Still, I'm glad to see Portugal getting the credit it deserves; even though one can see how flawed the points system is that ranks Germany and Norway in the top 10?!

For the record, Argentina is the best team in the world right now in my opinion.

 

[Marco]

France is the #1 team.

 

[Bodat]

Agree...

 

[NelsonD]

Spain #4 I don't think so! How far back does this ranking go? I personally think we are a better than Spain and Italy and the Czech Rep. Here is my list:

France
Brazil
PORTUGAL
Holland
Argentina
Italy
Cxech Rep.

 

[Dan]

Yeah but these rankings are based purely on results - and not a popularity contest. No matter how god or bad they look, they are there on merit because of the results they achieved. I think both Spain and the Czech Republic could beat us and Italy already have.

Remember, we didn't actually beat any really good sides in Euro 2000, although we did extremely well.

 

[Dae]

Why on earth is the Czech Republic ranked so high? They never do anything. Yes, they made the finals in 96 but that was four freaking years ago. Spain being 4th is a joke too. Are these rankings based on friendlies too? If so, anybody can load up on chump teams and hold a high rank. Brazil does it.

 

[Guest]

That's more like it, Nelson D.....Nelson hit the nail on the head with that ranking he did! How is Spain ahead of us and Germany two spots behind us!!! Whoever ranks the countries don't know their a.s.s.es from their elbows!

 

[Marco]

Guys the rankings are based on 6 years of games played (qualifiers and friendlies alike)....these are the reasons why we are not ranked higher:

WC Qualifier(s)
Portugal 0 Armenia 0
Portugal 1 Ukraine 2
Portugal 0 N.Ireland 0

Euro Qualifiers
Portugal 1 Azerbaijan 1

Germany won EURO 96
Spain's qualification record is excellent.
Czech Republic--10-0-0 is that good or what?

 

[Dan]

Well said Marco, you read my mind.

We dont deserve to be any higher than 7th - all we did was finish in the semis - we failed to make France 98 and we only made Euro 2000 cos under UEFA'S strange system, we qualifyied at 2nd best team in an easy group which we should have won anyway but the massive giants of Azerbaijan stopped that.

 

[NelsonD]

Well italy failed to beat Belarus in both their Euro 2000 qualifiers, and Czech Rep's group was far easier than ours.

 

[Dae]

The Czech Rep.'s group was a joke! They played only one descent team, Scotland. Scotland stinks anyway. The rest were Bosnia, Lithuania, Estonia and the pathetic Faroe Islands!! Please tell me how an undefeated record against those teams is impressive in the least! There's no way they should be ranked even in the top ten!!

 

[SLB]

the fifa rankings r a joke, o.k we probably deserve to be where we r but chech rep 3rd????????? 100% in a group which couldnt have been picked easier along with spains, came 3rd or 4th in an easy wc qualifying group and didnt get past the 1st rd of euro 2000. france o.k they were basically gifted the wc and ec cup but they should be top coz their group was really hard and what have brazil done won the copa america against the mighty uraguay, have struggled recently in wc qualifiers and lost 3-0 to france in the wc final

[Edited by SLB on 08-07-2000 at 00:19]

 

[Marco]

ok here I go again....you guys let your portuguese heritage cloud your objectivity sometimes....

1. Scotland is much better Northern Ireland, Armenia, Azerbaijan.
2. Lithuania is better than NIRELAND, ARMENIA, Azerbaijan
3. Bosnia is better than NIRELAND, ARMENIA, Azerbaijan

The fact of the matter is the Czech's were able to beat those "inferior" teams whilst we were not. We draw to many games.

Second the reason we missed out on WC98 was not the Germany debacle but rather bobo Oceano missing the PK against Armenia--he scores...we're in--

Third the FIFA Rankings are not a measure of who is the strongest but rather a measure of who is winning games....I have always believed we were a TOP 10 team..and the #7 ranking suits me just fine. They also go back 6 years, hence the reason Brazil (WC 94 winners, COPA '99 winners), Italy (WC 94, EURO 2000 finalists) and Germany (EURO '96 winners) high rankings

Daeone:
We should have amassed an 9-1-0 record...but Romania and AZERBAIJAN found a way to stop that

 

[SLB]

im not saying portugal should be ahead of chech rep but i am saying they should not be 3rd
in my opinon romania are better than scorland and slovakia and hungary are on par with them i also think that n ireland are better than bosnia and lithuania
chache rep werent in wc 94 or 98 reched a final in euro 96 and didnt qualify from the 1st rd of euro 2000,
we may not have qualified for 98 but i still blame the ref against germany

 

[Dae]

Marcoa, I agree that Portugal has done a great job of losing and tying teams that they have no business even letting in the door. Hell, they barely made the EC 2000. Making the WC 2002 is no done deal (especially with these suspensions). My point is only that Czech Rep. is not that good a team. They are not the third best team in the world and that is that. Maybe their record is good and so forth, but the competition is not worthy of that rank. Bosnia, NIreland etc.. are not good teams. Yes, they are better than me and my friends, but hell, who isn't? I'd put Argentina, Holland, Italy and even Paraguay before them. Don't laugh, Paraguay is a good, if very boring, team.

 

[Dan]

Dont be surprised if we draw or lose away to Cyprus. They are a fast improving team who beat Spain and Israel and may be our next Azerbaijan banana skin.

Ireland might beat us in Dublin as well.

The Czech's had a difficult group in Euro 2000 and if we replaced them in that group we probably would od struggled to get past France & Holland as well.

 

[Game Rod]

Yes the 7th is good for us. But if Portugal performs well again in WC 2002 and in 2004, and mainly in the qualifiers (more games), we'll get even higher. And if the system is based in the games of the latest 6 years, then soon the Azeri and Ucrainian disasters will be buried in the past.

The Czech play well and I think they deserve to have that recognized. They were unlucky in Euro 2000.

But personaly I don't care much about that ranking. I'd rather have Portugal qualified losing lousy games and performing great in the cup, than having them beating up all the qualifiers' opponents and then playing bad in the IMPORTANT competitions, not in friendlies or qualif. games