I'm listening to the match on 5Live and they've explained how they are so high in the rankings. The Polish FA figured out that FIFA rankings are biased towards qualifiers as opposed to friendlies, so they have only played 1 friendly match since Euro '96 (think I heard that correctly...may have been World Cup 2006) - which has seen them fly up the world rankings, and ended up being seeded so high. Colombia score, looks like Poland will be heading home early.
Lost to a good and exciting team today. Hope you beat Japan so Colombia have a better chance of going through with Senegal.
Thanks for the conforting words. But something went badly wrong with the preparations. The performance was very poor. I will get over it and will need out by British passport!
Having seen the England game highlights it’s a bit of a shame to have wasted the excellent free kick routine that Stones got his second from on Panama when already 3 up. Unless we have a few more up our sleeves. Haven’t seen the Poland - Colombia game but surprised at the result. Bad luck Ski.
So do I and I saw it today and in the first half against Tunisia. 21st eh. I think that says a lot about the lack of quality across the globe. Where were Poland because frankly they've been ****e in both games - Russia on the other hand have done exactly what they were supposed to but didn't FIFA rankings make them one of the least fancied home nations of all time?
Here are the FIFA rankings for each team at the World Cup ... ( In reverse order ) 70 Russia 67 Saudi Arabia 61 Japan 57 South Korea 55 Panama 48 Nigeria 45 Egypt 41 Morocco 37 Iran 36 Australia 34 Serbia 27 Senegal 24 Sweden 23 Costa Rica 22 Iceland 21 Tunisia 20 Croatia 16 Colombia 15 Mexico 14 Uruguay 12 England 12 Denmark 11 Peru 10 Spain 8 Poland 7 France 6 Switzerland 5 Argentina 4 Portugal 3 Belgium 2 Brazil 1 Germany
I've always criticised the rankings and I agree that England haven't played a good side yet. They will on Thursday and whilst I suspect they'll lose, it will be interesting to see how this young side plays against Belgium. I don't expect England to get a very long way in this tournament, but I do think Southgate has them moving in the right direction. I imagine that if England continue to do well, some people will say it's because everyone else is struggling. They can't win with some people.
Poland are absolute masters of managing their friendlies to protect their ranking position. This was highlighted to the FA to warn them we wouldn’t be a top seed if we played lucrative friendlies against Brazil, Spain etc. and it was ignored. Fortunately we’ve played well and put away two weak sides and we won’t play a superpower even if we finish second, but it’s silly to reduce our own chances at tournaments in pursuit of £££££££.
