[Mare]

After the WC, the FIFA World Rankings were updated and Yugo's ranking has fell a couple spots to #16

This is what it looks like...




Ranking as of 3 July 2002


1 Brazil 852 2 1 3 2
2 Argentina 784 2 0 2 0
2 France 784 1 -1 1 -1
4 Spain 774 8 4 7 3
5 Germany 765 11 6 12 7
6 Mexico 739 7 1 9 3
7 Portugal 731 5 -2 4 -3
8 England 728 12 4 10 2
9 Colombia 725 4 -5 5 -4
10 Italy 720 6 -4 6 -4
11 United States 712 13 2 24 13
12 Turkey 707 22 10 23 11
13 Denmark 704 20 7 17 4
14 Ireland Republic 699 15 1 17 3
15 Netherlands 697 9 -6 8 -7
16 Yugoslavia 689 10 -6 11 -5
17 Cameroon 680 17 0 38 21
18 Paraguay 679 18 0 13 -5
19 Belgium 678 23 4 20 1
20 Sweden 674 19 -1 16 -4

 

[thepretender]

these rankings mean nothing but i have to admit that it is our place...

 

[Borba]

The united states is above us... shame on us

 

[mgrubi]

I am actually surprised we are still in the top 20.

 

[thepretender]

south korea should be above us.

 

[Mare]

I disagree, I don't think South Korea or Turkey should have a high Ranking, I still believe that it was a fluke, Turkey had the luck of the draw, we could have got 3rd for god's sake if we qualified
If we were in instead of Turkey, just look at the draw, we would lose to Brazil, beat China and Costa Rica and than face Japan
We could beat Japan and than face Senegal, I think we could beat Senegal too and than we would be in the Semi's and lose to Brazil and finally have a good match with South Korea and end at worst 4th
Turkey got the luck of the draw, that's it, if Italy or Spain were there, they would have been out long ago
As for South Korea, the refs played a role in some of their most important matches, but I'll give them credit, they always faught to the end and have great determination

 

[Dule]

Or if we had qualified instead of Russia it would have been the same easy path.

 

[Mare]

Pretty much, yeah...

 

[thepretender]

south korea should be above us.

may i quote myself to say it was a joke
i agree with you petko, especially about turkey, i think that these 2 nations shined because all the european as well as argentina sucked hugely. but we cannot say they had only luck or refs's favours. they have huge talent. i don't like turkey but hasan sas and rustu really impressed me. the rest is not worth it i think. korea seems to have an important reservoir of talent : players can play in defense, midfield and attack with equal lightness !


but the quality of this competition was mediocre. obviously.
A poor brazil won that world cup and germany's team is an insanity : i couldn't even know what tactics they used during the game, it was such a huge mess!
apart from leverkusen players schneider, basturk, ballack and kahn especially from bayern, the whole team was a crap : no individual technique, no organisation, but a lot of discipline and italian-alike football destruction (poor cameroon...).

as beckenbauer said during the world cup : "if you want to know what will the german team look like today, you take kahn, you choose 10 players at random and you put them on the pitch ..."

They only played physically as they always do and it worked. Like england, they seemed to save their strength and stamina as long as possible to go as far as possible, playing by counterattacks.
we could have won it

 

[Montenegrina]

Hakan Sukur really impressed me.

 

[Mare]

I agree with you there thepretender, Sas impressed me too, along with Rustu and a couple other players from Turkey, but that's it, nothing else
Sure, Turkey is improving, but if they had at least England or a team of that class to deal with in the earlier stages, they would have been out long ago, but hey that's football for you...

 

[thepretender]

yeah nothing else.
both germany and turkey can be thankful for their keeper. they wouldn't have been through the first round with a yugoslav.
rustu and kahn raised their team to a high level despite being impressive. they're just mediocre teams that had easy stages.

when you see a guy like Emre playing for inter... pfff! this guy is so overrated : he knows how to foul but not how to hold the ball.
he loses the ball too quickly. he was also in charge of the free kicks : a disaster! even without the wall, this guy wouldn't be able to hit a post from 10 yards. he certainly costs a lot to inter. not in terms of wages : in terms of glass!

 

[Mare]

Well, Jevric has proved he is a class goalie, so I wouldn't put him down, but as for the rest of the Yugo goalkeepers, go ahead
Although Kralj used to be good back in the day...

 

[thepretender]

jevric is "fuoriclasse". there's no need to argue about him. he's the best currently. above all, he 's safe et secures his defense. that wasn't our goalies prime quality in the past...

kralj is good but he had the most terrible defense in the world during the last euro. he hadn't trust in its defense and his defense hadn't trust in him... i remember him being afraid to leave his line to punch the ball out of the box...
i don't know what this boskov did to screw that defense up that way (apart from making mihajlovic a starter )... djoric used the same and he did better!