Much has been made over Qatar being awarded hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup. Whether you felt it was earned fairly or not (it wasn’t), at the time everyone agreed the 2022 host would be the worst ever in terms of footballing quality. Then again, maybe not based on the latest Qatar FIFA ranking.
We told you last week about Qatar’s surprising (but deserved) AFC Asian Cup championship. On Thursday, the first FIFA World Rankings of 2019 were released, and Qatar was by far the biggest mover, jumping 38 spots to No. 55 in the world.
NEW #FIFARanking
More info https://t.co/mPfL6Qh2Am pic.twitter.com/VG2YAtQKTA
— FIFA.com (@FIFAcom) February 7, 2019
While the top 20 went completely unchanged, there was a lot of movement among Asian teams (up and down) after the Asian Cup, the only real competition to take place since the last FIFA rankings were released (there was no January ranking). In addition to the new Qatar FIFA ranking, here are the other big movers from Asia:
- South Korea: up 15 spots to 38th
- UAE: up 12 to 67th
- Jordan: up 12 to 97th
- Iraq: up 8 to 80th
- Iran: up 7 to 22nd
- Uzbekistan: up 6 to 89th
- Japan: up 3 to 27th
- North Korea: down 12 to 121
Iran is now ahead of the United States, which didn’t change ranking despite adding four whole points (1,497 to 1,501) with two wins to open the Gregg Berhalter era.
But back to this Qatar FIFA ranking.
In the month before FIFA voted on the 2022 World Cup hosting rights in 2010, Qatar sunk to No. 113 in the FIFA World Rankings, its lowest ever. Since then, the Maroons have hovered around the 80s and 90s. Had Qatar stuck with that rating, it would have been the worst host by FIFA ranking of all time.
Ahead of the 2010 World Cup, soccer fans, pundits and players questioned whether South Africa could show it belonged on the world stage not just as host but as a footballing team. Ranked as low as 90 in 2010, the Bafana Bafana moved up to No. 50 by the end of the year. Despite some thrilling moments, South Africa became the first (and thus far only) host nation to fail to get out of the group stage at the World Cup.
There were similar worries about Russia ahead of the 2018 tournament, despite the nation ranking No. 6 as recently as 2009. The team finished last in its group at the 2016 Euros and third in its group at the 2017 Confederations Cup. At the start of the year, it was ranked 70th in the world.
Russia, however, made it out of the group stage thanks mostly to just about the most kind draw imaginable, which of course led to countless conspiracy theories. Russia did play well at the World Cup for its part, even shocking Spain in the Round of 16, but things might have been different had it been placed in any other group.
So Qatar, with its ranking as high as 103 in 2018, was on pace to be the worst team to ever host the World Cup. That is, until this recent revival, marking its best-ever ranking since No. 53 in 1994.
The Maroons went 7-0 in January (and Feb. 1), not conceding until the final of the Asian Cup, a 3-1 win over Japan. Almoez Ali set a tournament record with nine goals.
If it keeps this up, Qatar will be on par with two of the last three World Cup hosts, maybe even better. On the bright side, neither South Africa nor Russia lost 7-1 while hosting a World Cup, as the top-10-ranked 2014 host did.
Now if Qatar can just work out its human rights violations so as to not end up like these former hosts.
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