Soccer Power Rankings!
World Cup 2010 and ESPN's Intl Soccer Power Rankings
I visit ESPN.com everyday. I stay pretty current on sports and related news stories…a lot of it has to do with keeping my knowledge up-to-date for fantasy sports….yeah. Anyways, something I really enjoy about ESPN are their power ranking articles. These articles are fluid rankings of professional/college teams against each other. Check out the NFL page, for instance. As I visited ESPN today I was excited to see that they have added International Soccer to their power rankings roster. As the 2010 World Cup is approaching, it will be fun to monitor these rankings (although I don’t suspect they will change much). If you’re into soccer and/or the World Cup, definitely check out this page as they have information and shorts blurbs about all of the teams, along with keeping you up-to-date on who has qualified.
**UPDATE** So as I was perusing the power rankings a couple things jumped out at me. Chile at #9 and US at #14. Is Chile really that good? And if so…really? As far as the US goes, I think they have been over-ranked for years. I personally think there are several teams rated below the US that could handle them easily (Cameroon, Croatia, Denmark, Sweden, Czech Republic to name a few). People agree…disagree with me?
Popularity: 31% [?]
Big surprises that I see:
Italy at #12?
Czech Repub at #25 (I’d think better)
Netherlands at #4!? (I mean, they’re good, but really?)
As for the US – I disagree. The US has taken out some giants over the last few years and consistently wins games. I think (and can definitely be wrong here) that we’ve seen the US lose a few big games, so we see them as vulnerable, but then are overlooking the good wins between those big losses. The US has a strong squad this year – probably its best ever (yes, we say that ever year) and although we’re not going to be winning any cups, I think we’ll do respectably well. Or at least I hope so.
What is ‘respectably well’? Do you think they make it out of the group stage (I know it depends on the group). I just don’t think they stack up against most European and South American teams. It is nice to see them beat the likes of Spain in the Confederation Cup, but it seems they lack consistency.
Italy at #12 is certainly low. Czech Republic is low too it seems.
I’ll take Cameroon any day of the week.
Anybody know if I wanted to bookmark this post do I have to sing up for Twitter first?plaese
@ Jameson – no you don’t…just bookmark it as you would any other website through your web browser. Thanks for visiting.