FIFA 2010 World Cup: Team rankings, England’s worst showing
Who are the biggest underachievers in world football? The answer may have been Spain prior to this World Cup, but now that they have finally won their first World Cup title. Spain is no more an underachiever. Now England may be the biggest underachievers, even though they managed to win a World Cup in 1966. But since then what have they achieved?
A team that is full of superstars and players who can win a club match on their own on any given day, but cannot perform on the international stage. One wonders what happens to English players when they come on national duty. The question has been on the minds of many for years and the man trusted with England’s coaching job, Fabio Capello cannot give the answer.
England suffered 4-1 at the hands of Germany and crashed out of the World Cup before the quarter finals. Now it is official that it was England’s worst World Cup performance.
FIFA the world governing body of football has released a ranking of teams in the World Cup, and has rated England as 13th from the 32 teams that took part in the World Cup.
England finished 11th in the 1958 World Cup and that was their worst performance till 2010. In 2006 England were ranked 7th after they crashed out in the quarter finals against Portugal. 4 years earlier in Japan and Korea, England finished 6th. The graph of the England team does not look to be heading in the right direction.
Spain the eventual World Champions were obviously 1st and Netherland’s 2nd followed by Germany who beat Uruguay to get the 3rd spot and Uruguay subsequently 4th.
The 13th rank is the worst finish for England in a World Cup. But in 1974, 78 and in 1994 England did not even make it to the World Cup.
England in the 2010 World Cup was in simple words, disappointing. The first group match against USA was a struggle and a 1-1 draw was justified, even though the goal for USA came from a Robert Green howler. Later a tame draw against Algeria made things worse. A scrappy win against Slovenia did get them to the final 16. But Germany tore them apart in a 4-1 defeat.
The argument though still remains, that had Lampard’s goal been allowed, England would not have had to play such an attacking game and would not have been vulnerable on the counter. Germany scored the last 2 goals on rapid counter moves as England surged forward in search of goals.
Back in 1950 and in 1958 England played till the group stage with 16 teams and still ended the World Cup higher than 13th place.
Later in the 1982 the World Cup was expanded to 24 teams. In the 1982 World Cup and in 1998 it was 32.
The rankings that FIFA make after the World Cup are based on group stage results, and, progression in the tournament, while also taking into account the quality of oppositions played.
The top four ranked teams were pretty clear. Argentina were ranked 5th followed in close by their South American rival Brazil. Ghana who surprised many in this World Cup got the 7th spot and Paraguay finished at 8th.
Considering that teams like Japan and Chile and even United States finished higher than England it does make one wonder, was England that bad?
Fabio Capello has been trusted by the England Football Association and given time till Euro 2012. He would have to work some wonders if he is to improve on this latest showing. Once again the talent is all there, all he needs to do is to find the right mentality.
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