December 2006 FIFA Rankings

December 18th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

Another month, another set of FIFA rankings and another series of laughs. As has been the custom for the past five years, Brazil is once again the top ranked team in the world and gets the honor of being named team of the year even though they didn’t win the World Cup. Minor details.

“Brazil’s four victories in Germany and highly consistent performances in friendly matches, irrespective of their opponents and the venue, were still more than the most promising chasing teams had to offer,” FIFA said in a statement.

At the other end of the spectrum, American Samoa still is the worst team in the world and still would likely be beaten by us if we cobbled together 11 World Cup Blog readers and formed a team.

Just for shits and giggles, I thought it would be fun to compare the current top 10 with the top 10 from exactly a year ago before that little thing called the World Cup was even played and when everyone knew that the United States, Mexico and Czech Republic were much stronger than 12th ranked Italy.

December 2006

1 Brazil
2 Italy
3 Argentina
4 France
5 England
6 Germany
7 Netherlands
8 Portugal
9 Nigeria
10 Czech Republic

December 2005

1 Brazil
2 Czech Republic
3 Netherlands
4 Argentina
5 Mexico
5 Spain
5 France
8 USA
9 England
10 Portugal

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fab

wtf is nigeria doing in the top 10

cheesus rice
paul

argentina? argentina? Ahead of GERMANY? If I remember correctly Germany punted the argies right out of the WC only months ago and made them cry!!!
http://france.theoffside.com sam

as much as i love african soccer and we all know they’re getting better, nigeria shouldn’t be in the top 10. hopefully they’ll deservedly be there soon.
fab

as i remember it was in germany it was a tie game and germany bought the ref who called everything but nothing on the germans
paul

r u still crying fab? You shouldn’t be. You honestly can’t say you expected argentina to beat the mighty GERMANS.

If it makes you feel better thinking the refs were against the argies….well I don’t want to take that small pleasure away from you.

maybe next WC ….. NOT!
Martinez

How could Argentina POSSIBLY be ahead of Germany!?

Germany absolutely demolished Argentina to a tie on German soil! That one game alone should prove to all the undeniable superiority of German football!
javi

ummm how do you absolutely demolish a team into a tie ??? hmmmm well, that should tell you a bit about the witts of the author of that well thought out statement…yes we all wanted a first crack at “martinez” bright comment ..but i could not resist being the first one to point out his short commings…in the words of a very comical movie called billy madison” you make no sence, we are all now dumber for having read your opinion..not only do i not award you any points, but may god have mercy on your soul” umm something like that, regardless , thank you “martinez” for the laugh
Martinez

American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
sarcasm

A form of irony in which apparent praise conceals another, scornful meaning. For example, a sarcastic remark directed at a person who consistently arrives fifteen minutes late for appointments might be, “Oh, you’ve arrived exactly on time!”
FORZA ITALIA

The truth is that :

The Great Italians DEMOLISH those pathetic germans on their own soil.
Chuck

javi — I think he was kidding.

Anyways, they should just do these rankings every quarter, and not every month. There’s just not enough going on in a month-to-month basis.
Martinez

“Anyways, they should just do these rankings every quarter, and not every month. There’s just not enough going on in a month-to-month basis.”

That’d actually make more sense, release rankings every three months. It’d make them a bit more meaningful discussion-wise and there’d be at least ’some’ anticipation to them.
javi

ah yes sarcasm..totally missed it…though now that its morning with a lil sleep under me i can almost tell..thing is im used to hearing that from people so i really thought u meant it hehehe
Martinez

No problem, man.
http://josoatlasaol.com johnny

this last world cup should prove that not only the germans deserved the world cup but it showed that the italians are the biggest cry babies,argentians are not the best ,brazil is showing its age and that i applaud what zidane did in the final even though france lost.Klinsmann put together a team that not only proved to the world and germany of its potential … that was always there .. but he also united a nation that for years was divided… long live germany
john

Actually Johnny ITALY THE FOUR TIME WORLD CHAMPIONS never cried. They did make your beloved germany cry like babies when they kicked their asses right out of the WC, in germany’s house.

You gotta love the Azzurri!!
go football

Yeah I could have sworn I saw Balack crying like a baby. Johnny just proves how ridulously childish people are when their teams lose. Grow up Johnny, Germany were not as good as you think. No team really showed much potential this WC. Germany have a history of scraping by on penalty kicks. Watch Italia 90, complete garbage. Germany will never win another title..worst German team ever had it not been for those two Polish players…
co

nigeria deserves to be in the top 10. they are the best team in africa unlike the over rate US team that got their butts handed to them by ghana and only made it as far as they did in 02 through luck.