On Thursday, we began a process of reaching out to prominent writers and soccer watchers in the United States to formulate a poll much like the AP Poll in College Football and Basketball ranking the World Cup Qualifiers from 1 through 32.
Here is our poll. First place votes in parenthesis
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1. Brazil (7) 286
T2. Spain (2) 267
T2. Germany 267
4. Holland 248
5. Ivory Coast 242
6. Italy 236
7. England 233
8. Argentina 217
9. Mexico 203
10. Cameroon 201
11. Serbia 181
12. Denmark 166
13. Chile 153
14. Portugal 152
15. Ghana 150
16. Paraguay 143
17. Slovakia 134
18. South Korea 128
19. Slovenia 125
20. France 124
21. Switzerland 119
22. Uruguay 118
23. Nigeria 110
24. United States 100
25. Australia 91
T25 Greece 91
27. Japan 86
28. Honduras 70
29. Algeria 40
30. South Africa 31
31. North Korea 26
32. New Zealand 9
Voters are, Richard Farley, Kartik Krishnaiyer, Jonathan Starling from Set Piece Analysts.com; Jordan Wise of World Soccer Reader, Ted Hill from South Florida, Robert Jonas, Major League Soccer Talk, Dave Trotter, French Football Blog, Tony Harris, Florida Goal and Max Zeger
Notes
- Brazil was first on seven of nine ballots, while New Zealand was ranked last on every ballot.
- South Korea was as low as 27th on a ballot and as high as sixth.
- Switzerland who qualified automatically from UEFA was ranked by the voters below UEFA playoff qualifiers France, Slovenia and Portugal.
- We’ll publish the variances on each national team in the very near future.
Argentina ranked 8th? Above Mexico? I’m not a fan of either team, but have seen both play in this cycle, and I would’ve put Maradona’s boys much lower.
I like the rankings though (concept). Thanks guys.
As a fan of Argentina, thanks for being kind to us in our position. Then again, I guess the neutral can be right about our position as well. I’m just keeping my fingers cross rather than being too confident. We’ll see how it goes.
The rest of the list looks pretty debatable. I don’t think it’s fair to put New Zealand at the bottom of the list, much more so below North Korea.
Their performance against Asian teams so far has been very good, therefore they do deserve some respect (a draw against Iraq in the Confed Cup & World Cup play off against Bahrain).
Wait, nine people who supposedly know something about soccer thought New Zealand would win out? What?
OK, I’m not going to claim that the United States is a world powerhouse, or that its #11 FIFA ranking is accurate.
But with the USA at #24 in this list, it’s hard not to escape the feeling that some of these voters were too cautious for their own good — wary of appearing naive by inflating their own country’s status. So by overcompensating, they’ve actually managed to underrate.
I’m with you, mgrayscale, regarding Argentina being that high. But that’s what this poll is about, for me: see where the consensus has these teams. I’m thinking about where my analysis differs and seeing if there are faults. On Argentina, I’m not doing much second-guessing.
South Korea, however, I am reevaluating, as I had them much higher. I’ll be talking about that on World Soccer Digest tomorrow. In general, I think I had the three non-NK Asian teams much higher than others.
Tom: A lot of my ranking of the U.S. was based on Davis being out and Onyewu, even if he’s back, being a non-factor.
However, it’s possible EVERYBODY had the U.S. higher than 24th but they ended up there because, unlikely some of the teams that passed them, they didn’t have one person who vastly overrated them. I only saw two of the ballots, so I can’t say if that’s the cast, but the way these polls go, the math can be skewed like that.
You guys are underrating Nigeria. And I don’t mean that you are discounting any alleged home field advantage. Nigeria struggled in qualifying, but now that they’re in you have to account for the embarrassment of riches they have in terms of interesting, charismatic, athletes. All over Europe mid-level clubs bet the house on Nigerian players to fend of relegation and climb the table in first division soccer, and they’re bringing all of them. Chile? Paraguay? Frickin’ Switzerland? Better than Nigeria? Ya gotta be kidding me.
Any such poll without my input never actually happened.
Snobbery, I say…
WOW!
I’m actually quite impressed with the ratings. Quite accurate in my opinion and at least for me verifies that someone around here knows their international soccer.
It’s clear that a lot of thought on not only results and strength of schedule was considered, but also some intangibles such as coaching, history, “home field”, and X-factors were considered.
The high rankings of Holland, Ivory Coast, Argentina, Mexico, and Chile prove as much.
But what really gives these guys credibility in my eyes is the US ranking. Thank you for not being blind!
All the best,
- Gary