Sweet 16 For Socceroos

THE Socceroos have climbed to an all-time high of 16 in the latest FIFA rankings released today.

Pim Verbeek's men enjoyed an unbeaten trio of World Cup qualifiers last month and their form has seen them rewarded.

It is the highest Australia has ever been placed in FIFA's international ratings system which ranks 203 member nations of FIFA.

"We are delighted at this new. Rankings are not the 'be all and end all' of football but they are certainly an indicator of our progress.

"The more competitive games we play, the greater the opportunity to improve our position in the world rankings and the more match hardened the team becomes.

"This is a great reward for the Qantas Socceroos form in the qualifying rounds for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

"Once again, we congratulate Pim Verbeek and the players for their efforts," said Football Federation Australia CEO Ben Buckley.

The Socceroos became the second team to qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup (excluding the host nation) in early June, and finished the fourth stage of qualification with 6 wins and 2 draws against strong rivals Japan, Qatar, Bahrain and Uzbekistan.

Buckley said he had recently returned from a brief trip to South Africa and said that it will be a "fantastic" tournament.


http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/10669...socceroos.aspx

FIFA'S TOP 50 (c) FIFA (I have put up the Top 20)

Nation/Previous Ranking/Points Gained or Lost

1 Brazil 1672 4 384
2 Spain 1590 -1 -171
3 Netherlands 1379 -1 -63
4 Italy 1229 0 -63
5 Germany 1207 -2 -171
6 Russia 1161 3 -6
7 England 1135 -1 -90
8 Argentina 1091 -1 -112
9 France 1082 1 15
10 Croatia 1031 -2 -169
11 Greece 1001 6 79
12 USA 983 2 36
13 Switzerland 930 3 -1
14 Serbia 925 6 55
15 Denmark 909 9 73
16 Australia 886 13 107
17 Portugal 879 -6 -125
18 Côte d'Ivoire 874 20 129
19 Ukraine 869 0 -22
20 Uruguay 860 -3 -62

So they beat (and draw) teams 40, 86, 67 and 79 on the list, and now they are better than Portugal - yeah, right....

Wash your mouth out with a soccer kit Andy - they are the best in the world AND deserve to host a Soccer World cup espesically if their pool matches are here in Perth in an oh nicely federally funded purpose built rectangular type stadium.

Although I fully empathise with your viewpoint on the world rankings and am still convinced that the Bookie would back your viewpoint to the dollar as well ;)

It has to be humbly said that this kinda points to the difference in prestige between Union and Football.
Union: 95ish nations with the top six or seven a chance to beat each other but really down to three or four teams at the top.
Football: 203 nations (and no doubt played in the balance of non-member nations in some form) with most of the top twenty a chance of beating another on any given match with an elite of around ten teams.
Imagine Union with a Football following!
Get busy IRB...