Things To Be Ashamed Of Or Not

If you want something to feel proud of as a United States based footcer fan check out last week's BBC Radio Five Live's "Fighting Talk" (which is, by the way, the absolute best sports pundit show on Earth) on mp3. I won't say anymore, but it's a beautiful thing. But check it out soon because the new one will be on the interweb before the sun rises in the United States.

Something to be not as proud of was pointed out by Du Nord. MLS is ranked the 71st best top flight footcer league in the world in their rankings of all things club related.

Now Du Nord makes the point that 71st ranks the MLS as just ahead of India. But that analysis (though it was made as a joke) is a little faulty. Here's the problem with the International Federation of Football History and Statistics ranking formula. The criteria are as follows:

"The classification of the best leagues of the world is made objectively without any out side influence of any sort. We follow the criteria that the level of performance of a league is reflected by the best classified teams of that league who in turn usually represent their country in international club competitions. If one looks at the football power-houses of the world, one notices that regularly 4 or 5 clubs of their leagues are always competing in con tinental competitions. By adding the points won in all competitions by the five best placed clubs of each league, we have the points for the country which in turn helps to establish a fair classification. It is important to note that only the yearly classification is representative, since all competitions move along the whole season and over twelve months, we have an objective view of the best. This system has been used since 1991, and it is recognized today as the most precise in rating the leagues of the world."

Their criteria is going to be unnaturally biased against CONCACAF whose club competitions are basically a joke. For one thing, the main club cup here doesn't have five teams from any league to even carry the banner (Mexico only qualifies four if I remember correctly). For second, the league is so short that there's really not a huge set of data to analyze (whereas in UEFA or the AFC the competition goes on ad infiniteum). Though I think their methodology counts knockout phase relatively equally.

A few other interesting things come out of these statistics. The first is that the world is considering the wrong four when it talks about the Big Four European Leagues - England, Spain, Italy, and Germany.

Sure enough La Liga, the Premiership, and Serie A are the top three leagues in the world (in that order which might surprise the English types but not a lot of others) according to the rankings (though Italy is tied with Brazil). But the fourth best league in Europe isn't the Bundesliga. It turned out it's League One in France - by over 100 points over Germany. Too bad I can't stand Lyon's domination enough to care about the fourth league in Europe. :)

More promising for the United States is the rankings of the individual teams. The MLSers come in at the following slots:

#273 Kansas City Wizards
#317 D.C. United

"What's so great about that?" one might ask. Here's why it shows promise. Ranked below DC United are the following Champions League and UEFA Cup qualifiers: Dinamo Tiblisi and Malmo. In the gap between the Wizards and D.C. United are: Lokomotiv Plovdiv and Maccabi Haifa. And those were just the names that stuck out (because I'm too exhausted to come up with the full list).

Amongst the general top league sides from all over the world ranked below the Wizards are: Cruz Azul, Racing Santander, Twente Enschede, Birmingham City, Aston Villa, Real Socieadad, Denizlispor, Siena, Livorno, Charlton Athletic, and Messina. There's also a certain west London team who lost to the Columbus Crew and are ranked #328.

So by all accounts, the two MLS entries who crack the top 350 are actually better than four Premiership teams (plus at least couple that miss the list completely) according to the rankings. While I don't know if that lends credence to my contention that a couple of MLS teams could make the playoff spots (at least) in the Colaship or not, but it doesn't hurt it. :)

By the way, Catholica Universidad, the team that knocked D.C. United out of the Copa Sudamericana, they're #51 in the world according to the rankings. Just saying is all.

Though having said that, I question the entire list since the #1 club team in the world right now according to their formula is: Inter Milan. Chelsea ranks #14 behind Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle, and Arsenal.

On what planet is Inter Milan the best team? Sure if they win the Champions League this year (as the betters have them as one of the favorites of doing), I'll have to eat my hat but I'm thinking it won't happen.

And in what world is Real Madrid #36 and Barcelona #37 (both behind Celtic)?

Fate, I sound like one of those people who knock the FIFA rankings on this one. ;)

---

There are a couple things for Germany to be ashamed about besides having the Bundesliga lose its status as the fourth best league in Europe and both involve the World Cup.

The first is beyond Germany's control but the name and likeness of its World Cup hosting is being used in an internet phishing scam. FIFA warns to avoid taking seriously all e-mails that advertise a FIFA lottery giving away rewards for information. So, there's your footcer public service announcement for this decade. :)

The second act is just shameful by the Germans (and I'm only saying this half jokingly) and involves hiring a passion play director to direct the opening ceremonies of the World Cup.

Well, gee, let's think about this for a second. When was the last time Germany hired passion play types to get heavily involved in a sporting event? Perhaps it was the 1936 Olympics. Maybe they're just trying to scare Israel off from qualifying as they could possibly do early next month (though now it's an outside shot involving some crazy France, Switzerland, and Ireland scenarios).

Yeah, that was in as poor a taste as Germany hiring the director. But two can play that game. And my embarrassment is more easily forgotten. :)