England on the up

[bibblebub]

http://www.guardian.c...and-rise-to-world-no4

England are now up to 4th place in the FIFA world rankings.

1 Spain
2 Germany
3 Uruguay
4 ENGLAND
5 Portugal
6 Italy
7Argentina
8 Holland
9 Croatia
10 Denmark

Hurrah!

[ichkeria]

The FIFA rankings are ludicrous. They can have as complicated a system as they like, but unless you have lots of teams from different regions of the world playing each other on a regular basis, which you don't, then you can't possibly have a realistic system of grading.
Brazil are only 11th because they've not played much recently. England are 4th because they've recently reached the quarter finals of Euro 2012.
It's interesting to look at these lists, but they tell us very little about the real strengths of teams. I wonder if it is possible to come up with a more scientific - or at least realistic - system?

[ichkeria]

In answer to Duncer's query about Tofik Bakhramov, we will, of course soon get a chance of seeing that statue of him in Baku again :-)
By the way as no doubt everyone knows
"The 'Russian' linesman, Tofik Bakhramov" is an anagram of "Risen arm, thanks, I love this man of Baku".
A shame he wasn't Russian, but no matter.

[bibblebub]

The only time that world rankings are of any practical use - and not just for the kudos of being the number 1 ranked team - is the draw for the World Cup finals (and maybe the Olympics?) where they manipulate the draw to try to get the top teams through to the knock-out stage. Until FIFA make that a completely random draw then the current system is as good as any.

[Davethedog]

'Tis laughable were not even 4th in Europe

[ichkeria]

That is the thing though bibblebub: they need some sort of "system" to enable them to do things like that. It serves a useful purpose for that reason only, but that in a way merely underlines its shortcomings. However if the system, albeit it inadequate, is transparent, then it shouldn't be possible for them to manipulate anything.