How can teams that are in the world cup be ranked in the 40s and 50s? (Togo, Angola, Ukraine, Australia, Serbia, etc…)

How did the USA get into the Top10, let alone the Top5? They play in a soft continent, and get many wins against much weaker opponents. They have yet to produce anything outside their continent’s competitions (gold cup wins? played on home soil)

Ukraine is ranked 42. They qualified by winning a group which included Turkey (11), Denmark (14) and Greece (21). How did Denmark ever get to 14? Was it that one good result v France in Japan/Korea?

There must be a better way to do this… perhaps having rankings for each continent, and then allocating a certain number of places to each continent for the Top 20, Top 50, Top 100, etc.. (much like the allocation of places foer the world cup).

Even better: have the 32 teams from the world cup start the next 4 years ranked 1 to 32 based on how they finish, and have them move up and down based on results in between world cups.

Any thoughts?

How do you look at this?

It all depends, right?

if we take into account that 60% of the top 10 countries in the globe are European (coke rank), then, Yes, they will dominate.

If you consider that only 44% of the teams in this cup are European, then, they will not. But relatively speaking, if you compare this 44% with each other continent’s figure, well , then yes.

If you look at the last 30 years, then, basically, it’s either Brasil, Germany or Argentina. That’s a 33% chance that germany will walk away with the trophy. :) (shameless plug for Albicelestes!)

if you are not a complete IDIOT, then your money is with Brasil. ( darn it)

If you had the crystal ball, then is ARGENTINA! ARGENTINA!.

If you designed the Coke ranking, where USA is 1 point away of topping Argentina……you are doing too much coke man, go straigh to rehab, don’t collect $200.

It’s just a numbers game. Europe gets more qualifying places than every other region (and rightly so since there’s so many more countries jammed in there), so there would have to be major upsets all across the board to not see 5-6 of the final eight teams be European. 2002 was the first time in WC history that only one of the final 4 teams was European (unless you count Turkey as a member of the EU), so perhaps there is a change in the winds.

I hope we see more teams from other regions go deep into the tournament, but the sheer weight of numbers and history lean against it.

and why would we say we’re not favorites? we’re not being egocentric, its just the reality! 2 times champion and 1 time runner-up in the last three cup, and we have the best team of the world, what do you want me to say?!

I know there are lots of people who wants Brazil not to win, but also most people would like to face Brazil at the final match. I’m not that worried about the crowd factor.

As long as we are in the competition, samba party will go on, right?