World Cup 2014

Sport
1

The draw for WC 2014 qualifying is taking place on 30th July.

UEFA rankings are below. We aren’t a million miles off becoming a second seed again but remain in the third pot for the third competition in a row (though we’ve progressively improved from 24th to 23rd and now 21st). Montenegro’s progress is an example of how quickly you can climb the rankings. In fact if Montenego had beaten Bulgaria in their last game they’d have become first seeds already. We would probably fancy ourselves to give most of the second seed teams (and a couple of the top teams) a run for their money.

Other interesting achievement is Faroe Islands getting ahead of Wales. That’s not officially confirmed by FIFA yet who have the two teams as level but some student in the Faroe Islands noticed an error in the calculation FIFA used and has worked out that Faroe Islands are marginally ahead so looks like they’re getting to move up a pot which is a super achievement from Kerr.

1 Spain 1588
2 Netherlands 1542
3 Germany 1305
4 England 1146
5 Portugal 1076
6 Italy 1059
7 Croatia 1033
8 Norway 972
9 Greece 959

10 France 920
11 Montenegro 915
12 Russia 914
13 Sweden 884
14 Denmark 857
15 Slovenia 833
16 Turkey 820
17 Serbia 797
18 Slovakia 779

19 Switzerland 778
20 Israel 771
21 Republic of Ireland 752
22 Belgium 691
23 Czech Republic 670
24 Bosnia-Herzegovina 642
25 Belarus 636
26 Ukraine 620
27 Hungary 603

28 Bulgaria 599
29 Romania 571
30 Georgia 530
31 Lithuania 526
32 Albania 524
33 Scotland 513
34 Northern Ireland 498
35 Austria 479
36 Poland 474

37 Armenia 462
38 Finland 419
39 Estonia 399
40 Cyprus 398
41 Latvia 388
42 Moldova 383
43 FYR Macedonia 338
44 Azerbaijan 282
45 Faroe Islands 273

45 Wales 273
47 Liechtenstein 253
48 Iceland 244
49 Kazakhstan 231
50 Luxembourg 213
51 Malta 83
52 Andorra 0
52 San Marino 0

Rather disappointingly friendlies take their toll here. The standings if friendlies weren’t included are:

1 Netherlands 2353
2 Spain 2307
3 Germany 1845
4 England 1585
5 Italy 1577
6 Portugal 1414
7 Greece 1255
8 Russia 1252
9 Croatia 1248

10 Denmark 1246
11 Slovakia 1232
12 Norway 1231
13 France 1179
14 Sweden 1139
15 Serbia 1075
16 Montenegro 1059
17 Switzerland 1050
18 Republic of Ireland 1013

19 Slovenia 1001
20 Turkey 946
21 Israel 920
22 Czech Republic 905
23 Bosnia-Herzegovina 846
24 Belarus 826
25 Northern Ireland 802
26 Belgium 778
27 Bulgaria 752

28 Romania 739
29 Hungary 735
30 Lithuania 688
31 Austria 624
32 Latvia 604
33 Armenia 571
34 Albania 564
35 Estonia 556
36 Georgia 548

37 Finland 546
38 Scotland 543
39 Moldova 465
40 Ukraine 441
41 Cyprus 435
42 Azerbaijan 320
43 FYR Macedonia 314
44 Faroe Islands 310
45 Liechtenstein 308

46 Poland 250
47 Iceland 232
48 Kazakhstan 209
49 Luxembourg 195
50 Wales 181
51 Malta 29
52 Andorra 0
52 San Marino 0

2

Brian Kerr getting Faroes out of bottom pot is a massive achievement…

3

Norway
Turks
Nordies
Faroes
Andorra

Thanks Sepp.

4

Counting friendlies for ranking points is ridiculous.

Football’s governing authorities screwing us again.

5

Poland moved up two pots on the strength of friendly’s <_< very wrong

6

Correct.

Poland had a friendly with Argentina a couple of weeks ago. Argentina may have been somewhat distracted by being about to host the Copa America so they sent over a B squad* and lost 2-1. Poland promptly jumped from 5th seeds to 4th seeds at the expense of Armenia.

  • Argie team:

Adrian Gabbarini
Pablo Zabaleta
Cristian Ansaldi
Federico Fazio
Mateo Musacchio
Nicolas Bertolo
Alejandro Cabral
Mario Bolatti
Marco Ruben
Jonathan Cristaldo
Pablo Piatti

7

Wales are below the Faroes :lol:

8

But it’s amazing they were down there seeing as they were at WC2006 and Euro2008

9

Good point Thrawneen. Let us know when you’ve finished reading the first post.

10

Sorry Rocko, the list of names got me too excited and I just scrolled down

11

Yeah they’ve been consistently good in qualifying but the value of those achievements diminishes over time on the sliding scale type thing FIFA use.

12

Also, is it not very dumb to be wasting the chance to get more points by playing dross like Wales, N. Ireland and Scotland? Should we not be looking for teams with lots of points who we would have a good chance of beating?

13

It certainly would be a progressive move. I guess that’s why Poland chose to play an understrength Argentina instead of an overstrength Iceland.

It’s fairly ripe for manipulation anyway. Teams that are in the middle of a good pot could easily arrange a friendly against a marginal team in exchange for an appearance team.

14

Didnt we have a friendly cancelled with Norway at some stage? That would have prob done the trick…

15

I don’t think an organisation like FIFA would have a process in place that could be liable to be less than transparent and open to corruption, in fairness Rocko. :rolleyes:

16

Not sure but they did beat us in Dublin last November though.

Big disparity in standard within pots 1 and 2 themselves. You could get Spain and France from the first two pots if you were really unlucky. Then you could get Norway and Slovakia on the other hand.

17

Wales sink below Faroe Islands to 114th in the Fifa rankings
Wales have suffered no shortage of footballing ignominy in recent years, but now they have been plunged to a new low – courtesy of some intrepid detective work by a student from the Faroe Islands.
By Telegraph staff and agencies
9:10PM BST 11 Jul 2011
Comment
Jakup Emil Hansen, who is studying for a masters in political science, wrote to his home football association after spotting that Wales were wrongly placed above the Faroese in the world rankings.

Hansen calculated that the Faroes have 0.07 points more than the Welsh after their recent 2-0 win over Estonia and, after the Faroese FA wrote to Fifa to point out the error, the rankings were adjusted.

Both sides are still ranked 114th in the world – Fifa’s website credits each with 273 points – but the Faroes are now listed ahead of Wales.

To be ranked beneath a nation of fewer than 100,000 people would be bad enough, but the change also has potentially damaging implications for Gary Speed and his team as they attempt to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The next set of Fifa rankings will be published on July 27 and will determine seeding for the 2014 qualifying draw in Rio de Janeiro two days later.

18

Read the first post Puke ffs…

19

Saint Lucia in action at home to Aruba tonight in 1st round qualifying. Aruba won 4-2 in their recent previous tie and have a bit of class in their ranks in the form of Sparta Rotterdam striker David Abdul but the Saint Lucians, on home soil and with two away goals, are certainly capable of springing an upset.
I, for one, can’t wait.

20

Good shout. Did you get the weekend’s result from the British Virgin Islands versus American Virgin Islands game? Doubt there were clean sheets involved there what with plenty of youngster being blooded.