Canada's FIFA Drop To 77th Warranted
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Despite the complaints of many Canadian soccer fans that the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings don’t accurately reflect reality, Canada’s new ranking of 77th, a drop of 17 places on the rankings of men’s senior teams, is fairly accurate.
Canada¹s drop occurred in large part due to the fact that the FIFA rankings no longer take into account games played over the previous eight years. Instead, the new rankings only take into account games played over the previous four years.
This means that Canada’s Gold Cup win in 2000, which kept Canadian soccer in respectable world rankings, no longer counts towards Canada’s total score. Neither does Canada’s 2002 trip to the semi-finals in the Gold Cup, where they lost to the United States on penalty kicks.
Instead, Canada’s FIFA position now reflects its trips to the 2005 and 2007 Gold Cups. While 2007′s trip ended in a disappointing loss in the semi-finals, 2005′s trip ended earlier, with the Canadian team failing to make it to the knockout stages.
Canadian soccer fans are loath to think of their team as more terrible than, say, Bahrain (72nd), Gabon (74th), or Burkina Faso (64th). After all, many Canadians will not even know that such countries exist (in case you are wondering, Gabon and Burkina Faso are both in West Africa.)
Instead, Canadian soccer fans are buoyed by Canada’s recent success in the first round of 2010 World Cup qualifications. Many fans looked at Canada’s 3-2 loss to perennial powerhouse Brazil as a success, despite the game-end result. Soccer fans are mostly hoping that this incarnation of the Canadian national team, led by Ali Gerba, Julian De Guzman and Dwayne De Rosario, will be the winner that they have long been praying for.
If you are a Canadian soccer fan who thinks that the national team is better than teams from unfamiliar and often unheard of countries, or if you think that Canada is great at soccer because it recently barely lost to Brazil, then perhaps the FIFA table warrants a closer look.
Burkina Faso, for example, moved up 47 points to sit in 64th place just below the spot that Canada previously occupied. One wonders how a nation of less than 14 million (not to mention extraordinary poverty) has managed such an outstanding feat.
Burkina Faso achieved its ranking by winning soccer games. In the past year, Burkina Faso has beaten Tunisia and Senegal. Burkina Faso’s record within the past four years also includes wins against Ghana and ties with Morocco. Burkina Faso had many other wins, but, importantly, the wins mentioned above were all matches against previous visitors to the World Cup.
By comparison, Canada hasn’t beaten a team that has recently appeared at the World Cup since it beat Jamaica 1-0 in 2006. Canada has tied Jamaica five times since then (all scoreless), and Canada has lost to Jamaica twice. Jamaica has since plummeted to 98th FIFA ranking position.
Instead, Canada’s wins have all come against weak competition. In the past four years, Canada has beat St. Vincent & the Grenadines (151st), Guatemala (104th), Haiti (119th), Costa Rica (79th), Bermuda (118th), Cuba (78th), Luxembourg (152nd), Belize (175th), and Barbados (137th). Canada has also beat Martinique, who is not a member of FIFA.
Canada’s lone win against a better opponent was a game against Northern Ireland, currently ranked 33rd in the world.
Canada’s ties have come against questionable competition too. Over the past four years, Canada has earned ties against Venezuela (61st), Honduras (48th), Iceland (98th) and Panama (69th).
When Canada plays against superior opponents, Canada loses. Despite Canada’s valiant effort against Brazil in May 2008, the final result was a loss. Canada has also picked up losses to Hungary (52nd), Wales (54th), South Africa (67th), Portugal (9th), Brazil (4th) and Spain (1st).
Canada’s ranking also hasn’t been helped by losses to two teams lower than Canada in the standings: Estonia (120th) and Austria (105th). Remember, the Austria mentioned in this article is the team that was so terrible that its own Austrian fans were petitioning for the team to be removed from this year’s Euro tournament, hosted in Austria, so that the team would not be a national embarrassment!
Canada has also lost to Guadeloupe (population: 400,000), an unranked Caribbean nation that is not a member of FIFA. Here’s an afterthought Could someone get rich writing a handbook entitled: “How to Lose to a Team from a Country with Less People than Surrey, B.C., Canada?”²
While the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings are not entirely accurate (was the United States really the 4th best team in the world in 2006?), the rankings do serve as an indicator of how well a team is playing at any particular moment. Therefore, despite Canada’s recent imagined success, the FIFA rankings sharply remind Canada that it must not settle for wins against poor opponents, but rather, emulate the model of the United States and book more games against good teams.
Take a look at a list of teams that the United States has played friendlies against this year and you’ll find names like Poland, England, Mexico, Sweden, Spain, Argentina: all teams that are in contention. Meanwhile, Canada¹s list includes Estonia, Panama and Brazil. One good team, and therein lies the difference. Play good teams more often, and you will beat them more often.
Of course, this is impossible overnight. Stadiums must be built and decisions must be made by the Canadian Soccer Association to invest money in high-quality matches for the Canadian team.
But Canadian soccer fans don’t want to wait. If Burkina Faso can book matches against teams that have played in the World Cup, surely the Canadian Soccer Association can figure it out.
Let’s hope that they do, because Gerba, De Guzman and De Rosario will only be able to play for the Canadian team for so long until it’s, “So long.” And that’s the bottom line.
