Down Down Down

The FIFA rankings must not be taken seriously because they are akin to a fairytale. A fairytale is frankly imaginary. It is a form of “wishful thinking,” so the rankings are never accepted as true by serious football followers.

Posted from  Australia

The USA are down because their team isn t good. Simple as this.

Posted from  China

wrhfgjkear: although I’d usually agree, the way FIFA ranking goes, whoever plays more gets to go up. Of course a team has to win a lot or get good WC positions to rank up faster, but friendlies do help.

Because of that and the ranking inertia, the FIFA rankings have to be taken with a grain of salt.

Grain of Salt?

Barrelful. But unfortunately in this case the rankings do reflect reality.

Despite having 300 million people and dozens of millions of kids playing soccer and other sports – the US is just not producing as many good athletes as one would expect. We get trounced in the World Cup, get beaten in basketball, get skunked in hockey, etc.

And in soccer, one would have thought that US would star producing some top notch talent by now. And we do have a set of good players, but so far no-one who’s broken into the top level teams.

The MLS has done a good job at getting good players developing, but it’s not helping develop the great ones. And there aren’t simple answers on how to do that.

Posted from  United States

In my opinion, they should set up a north/central american champions league to help fostering competition and drive further attention from the public. The big issue is that the USA championship is remote and isolated, that makes it harder to expand it. They have the money, they could do a great job… but football passion isn t a thing u make up overnight. What you see in Europe is sheer passion and drama, it s a culture.

Posted from  China

The problem is that the MLS concentrates on college-based recruitment. The MLS patterns itself off of other US sports authorities, the NBA, NFL, etc. This doesn’t work for football/soccer. Basing your recruitment on college students is the worst possible way to develop good players.

None of the great powers in the sport do this. US soccer concentrates on mostly white affluent kids – it’s not a sport for the masses, and the MLS has no idea how to take it to them.

Posted from  United States

The US does not have a real second or third division league like most countries, so we’re left with MLS trying to develop players from the college system. I think this is the right strategy and what works in the US. Star athletes are routed into the college system not just rich kids. Look at Basketball for example. Very few sports have a successful minor league system. The college system works very well for other sports (gynmastics, track, volleyball), not just the money sports. The problem is that in the US there is no money driving enough players to get serious about soccer. Right now it is just a recreational sport. To do that, you need interest from the general public – and sad to say but the general US public rates soccer forth or fifth on the list. Somewhere near the popularity of tennis.

As for the quality of the US team…despite the poor showing of the US in the latest World Cup they are a good team. They just need to step it up to another level and it’s hard to do that in a region with only one other quality team (Mexico). By the way, the US has consistently beaten Mexico recently. They hold a 7-1-2 record against Mexico since 2000.

Posted from  United States

The FIFA ranking obviously cannot be viewed as the UPI/AP polls we’re accustomed to in the US. The knowledgeable football/soccer fan can run off the top teams in their sleep based soley on the history of consistent WINNERS, so why bother with where the US is ranked. We all knew that this past US team’s ranking was highly overrated.

As for the growth and development of becoming a soccer-power, US kids have too many sports to chose from, and while that is not a bad thing, once it is determined that little Johnny has “IT” the focus is to further develop this budding superstar into the next Peyton Manning, Roger Clement or Steve Nash. Similarly, the parent(s)of the young African-American athlete will have their sights set on the lucrative contracts of the NBA/NFL, because they offer more oppoutunities. But most importantly, these same athletes must attend school, and the major universities are offering the “free ride” for the sports which will eventually make little Johnny a millionaire. MLS? Fat chance!

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Posted from  Saudi Arabia

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Posted from  Saudi Arabia