NewlyRetired
Footballguy
You refuse to acknowledge the formula I see. No biggie I guess but I am unsure why you are arguing the point. If you don't care about the formula then use the SPI rankings where Brazil is ranked 3rd.http://soccernet.espn.go.com/spi/rankings?cc=5901In their last ten they have beaten Japan, Iraq, South Africa, China, Bosnia, Gabon, Sweden, and Argentina. In that stretch they have lost to Mexico and Argentina. 1-2 against good teams doesn't scream severely underrated to me (Sweden isn't a bad team, but they also haven't played that well). I don't care if they almost put up double digits on China.The rankings are always a bit screwy, but I don't see more than a handful of teams they should be placed above. It looks like they have some decent competition coming up so maybe their ranking will rise.Huh?Brazil has won their most recent 6 games in a row, including beating Argentina. The combined score of the 6 games is 24-1.Hard to say. 7/10 maybe for Brazil? Brazil is ranked lower for a reason though. They really haven't played that well in quite some time.What would be outcome be if Greece played Brazil ten times?Here is the new top 20 for FIFA. 1 Spain 1564More proof that Silver hates America. USA is #34 vs. #27 in the FIFA rankings.On a political note, I was not aware, just learned, that Nate Silver is behind ESPN's "SPI" ranking system for national football teams, and is apparently still tweaking the formula: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/spi/rankings?cc=5901
2. Germany 1421
3 Argentina 1349
4 Portugal 1178
5 Italy 1169
6 England 1167
7 Netherlands 1128
8 Colombia 1110
9 Russia 1084
10 Croatia 1078
11 Uruguay 1047
12 Greece 1004
13 Brazil 994
14 Mexico 984
15 Côte d'Ivoire 974
16 Switzerland 966
17 Ecuador 951
18 France 938
19 Algeria 907
20 Belgium 881
Going back a year, Brazil has won 14 out of 16 games. The only losses are against Mexico and Argentina.
The reason Brazil is ranked lower in the Fifa rankings is the FIFA formula puts a high weight on WCQiers, of which Brazil has none.
The ESPN rankings do not weight the qualifiers as much and you will see Brazil is ranked 3rd
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Unfortunately it's a case of the Russian owner turning off the tap at short notice. The clubs trying to become self sufficient but can't do that overnight.We've taken our wage bill from £8.5mil to £5mil a year in just under 12 months. If we could get to 3.5 a year we'd be ok but with long contracts to be honoured and bills to be paid its difficult. :(