At what point did I use just Brazil and Germany? Did you not read the bit about Switzerland or Austria? It's an illustration that the ranking argument in your response to MY post is irrelevant. The ranking system is somewhat flawed, though I guess that has escaped your attention. The national squad is hopeless, we've won nothing since '66 and rarely actually looked like winning anything. We play awful football and we have someone in charge who plays a style of football that is dreadful and archaic. If you can't see that then I'm genuinely sorry for you. We have had a collection of players over a period of time that collectively have failed to live up to expectations, not just under Hodgson, but also his predecessors. We are poor, very poor, regardless of you thinking we are some mythical footballing super power. I do look forward to your response. Yawn.
You do seem to be suffering from a case of 'Blind Faith' it is treatable, though you do have a severe case.
This is a free consultation by Dr GLP.
i don't have a case of blind faith and i'm not ignorant of the fact that the england team's football could and should be far better and that there is a recent history of england players not living up to expectations or even to their league form. i'm also aware that the fa have long had a bad habit of appointing wrong managers. i rarely watch england matches because they're boring. but they win far more than they lose and on the international spectrum, they're pretty good.
ranking systems are inherently flawed. okay, so you were comparing austria and switzerland, not england, with brazil. but you said the positions of those two teams was ridiculous because they've never won anything and brazil have. it shows you don't understand the rankings - they cover recent form, admittedly imperfectly, over the last four years. in the last four years - in fact, even in the last 12 years - austria and switzerland have won exactly as many world cups as brazil. brazil have lost four of their last ten tournament matches (compared to crappy old england who have lost four tournament matches since 2007). and why shouldn't belgium be ranked above "current world cup holders germany"? germany have lost 5 of 15 games since becoming world champions. belgium have lost 5 in their last 38. it's about FORM, not historic hardware.
switzerland's improvement in the rankings has not been due to "a run of beating mediocre opposition". they've been gradually increasing their ranking position since 1998. nor has austria's - theirs was more to do with a particularly bad run prior to november 2011 no longer being included in the calculations.
my view of england's place in world football is realistic, unlike yours. england have an average position of 10th in fifa's rankings. so, typically, the rankings say there are nine better teams and about 200 worse ones. and that puts england way above average in terms of national teams. there are 200 countries/territories/whatever out there who'd love to be as "poor, very poor" "utterly toss" and "embarrassing" as england. i expect to beat worse teams and lose to better ones, whereas you appear to think it's an embarrassment and a failure to lose against better sides.
if you can think of a better way to rank teams, i'd like to hear about it. fifa need the rankings for seedings and whatever other uses they have.
