The FIFA rankings are a strange sort of beast, like Dr. Seuss’s Foo-Foo the Snoo. They don’t have any bearing on reality, and usually distort it, but they’re frequently referenced and even used as the framework to seed international competitions.
The latest FIFA World Rankings came out today and saw no changes in the top five.
FIFA World Rankings (2017)
1. Argentina
2. Brazil
3. Germany
4. Chile
5. Belgium
It’s difficult to determine how Belgium are still in there. They’ve had extremely friendly draws at their last two major tournaments, but they’ve heavily disappointed in both. At the 2014 World Cup, their best victory was over the United States. At Euro 2016, it was against the Republic of Ireland. But they remain higher than the likes of France, Portugal and Spain because let’s get rid of offside and play the World Cup in Qatar.
#FIFARanking's out!
Teams involved in #CAN2017 climbed up the table
Details https://t.co/fPIB6pZw4T pic.twitter.com/njBYMrUCtI— FIFA.com (@FIFAcom) February 9, 2017
Mexico are the highest ranking CONCACAF side at 17, while the USA finds itself below both Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina at number 29. It’s the lowest ranking for the American’s since falling to 32 in 2015.
Cameroon, winners of the Africa Cup of Nations, moved up 29 spots to 33. And how about this: Gabon, the hosts and one of the favorites at AFCON, miserably crashed out at the group stage and they’ve risen 21 places to number 87! Hooray, good job, Gabon!
El Salvador are also big winners, their third-place showing at the 2017 Copa Centroamericana brings them up to 114. Belize, who gathered one point from five Copa Centroamericana games and left with a goal difference of minus 8, also got to rise nine spots for simply playing football! There you go, la Selecta!
Tonga, sadly, are the worst team in the world at number 205. The archipelago of 36 different inhabited islands is having a tough time getting it all together. At least they can say they like rugby and not football. At number 204 is Somalia, and football is their most popular sport. With a population of 12.3 million, you’d think they’d be able to rise above Gibraltar, population 30,001.
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