August 2011 Rankings

September's arrived, so it's time to look at the August standings.

There's been no great movement during August, with Fiji and El Salvador being the biggest climbers - 5 places - and a handful of teams dropping 4 places.  The most notable changes are Japan rising to 9th and becoming the AFC's highest ranked team and Italy moving menacingly above Croatia and into 7th place.

FIFA Rankings, August 2011 - FIFA jump the shark.

So the new FIFA rankings released yesterday have the Netherlands at number 1.  It's great to see them there - pound for pound, there's no doubt that they are the greatest footballing nation in the world - but they haven't actually won an international match since March.  Not that it should be impossible to improve your ranking without playing.  It can happen in my rankings too, if those around you are losing matches.  But the Dutch have amassed 54 ranking points in the last month, despite not playing a match since June and, once again, not winning a match since March.  Ludicrous.

Matches in August 2011

Most of August's already past, but there are still quite a few games to be played before the end of the month.  The majority are friendlies, but there's also the Pacific Games football tournament to be played in New Caledonia, starting on the 27th and going on into September.

There are three inter-confederation matches still to be played this month, with India (ranked 130) playing away to Trinidad & Tobago (105) in Port of Spain tonight, and then against Guyana (163) in Georgetown on Wednesday 24th.  There's also a friendly on Monday between Jordan (59) and Tunisia (35).

July 2011 Standings

Normally I'll be posting the rankings on the last day of each month, or as soon as possible thereafter. But to help you through the lazy summer evenings up to the end of August, here's the standings as of 31st July 2011.

Does the world need another football world ranking system?

Well, no, not really, I suppose.

So why bother?  Curiosity mainly.  It all started when FIFA released their June 2011 World Rankings and England, despite not having actually won a game for three months, had risen from 6th to 4th.  Like pretty much everyone else, I thought there was no way that England could possibly be the 4th best team in the world, but I asked myself - where should they be then, if not 4th?