Quote:
Originally Posted by samne
I don’t get how Canada finishes top of CONCACAF, beat Mexico and US, but lower than those two in FIFA rankings and even dropped ranking since clinching.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by samne
I don’t get how Canada finishes top of CONCACAF, beat Mexico and US, but lower than those two in FIFA rankings and even dropped ranking since clinching.
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Previous ranking was based on February 10th (33rd), since then we lost two matches against teams ranked below us for the March 30th (38) ranking. I would have expected our ranking to drop. The US and Mexico were miles ahead of us ranking points wise according to FIFA starting the qualifying. We've made up lots of ground, but the sample set is always so small with the rankings. We won at home and tied away against the US and Mexico. I think we are close to them, but results don't often indicate play or circumstance. Canada was definitely better than Costa Rica for most of the game, but a silly loss of a player to cards and some unfortunate crossbar and goalpost issues sealed it. Tell that to the ranking program though. It's still an away loss to a lesser ranked opponent.
All the teams in that area of 20-50 are very close together. We lost a little more than 18 ranking points for the two losses, but the range is so small that it makes a huge difference. Yes, slightly meaningless games, but rankings points don't care about that. These were competitive (non-friendly) matches and even if you carry play you need the result to not lose points.
We needed to win the games to improve our standing. We didn't and our standing fell. If you want to keep or improve your standing, win your games at home, tie against like teams away and beat them when you are better.
I take it with a grain of salt because the rankings are only slightly accurate. There are many teams that don't play enough games and there aren't enough inter-association matches to make meaningful comparisons.