Thursday, July 22, 2010

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: July 2010

Rank (previous) Team Points Comment
1 (2) Spain 1883 Back on top for the World Champions
2 (4) Netherlands 1659 #2 in the world again
3(1) Brazil 1536 Expected better
4 (6) Germany 1464 Great effort but run into Spain
5 (7) Argentina 1289 Great talent; Entertaining coach; Not good enough.
6 (16) Uruguay 1152 A great run with Diego Forlan leading the way.
7 (8) England 1125 High ranking for a team that sucked and whined.
8 (3) Portugal 1062 Pretty fair.
9 (12) Egypt 1053 Highest ranking ever (for staying home to watch TV)
10 (18) Chile 988 Good run. Lost to Brazilin the round of 16.
11 (5) Italy 982 Two ties (New Zealand??) and 1 loss…
12 (13) Greece 975 One win against a good team maintained the rank.
13 (14) USA 969 They deserved a higher ranking
13 (15) Serbia 969 A win over Germany will get you a lot of points!
15 (10) Croatia 968 Lost ground (for staying home to watch TV)
16 (31) Paraguay 961 Meteoric rise after losing to Spain in the quarterfinals
17(11) Russia 956 Stayed home; Watched TV.
18 (24) Switzerland 940 Win (over Spain) and tie: +6 spots.
19 (25) Slovenia 917 A decent run and the highest ranking ever
20 (20) Australia 911 A win and a tie. Not bad for a team from Oceania!

I was actually surprised that Greece maintained its position but it came against a former top 20 team.

Spain is rightly the number 1.

Holland deserves to be number 2.

Uruguay could have been higher.

England should have been lower.

Why did Egypt go up?

Why did Russia go down?

France dropped 12 spots and out of the top 20. The way the played they were easily the worst team of the 2010 World Cup.

The latest full table can be found at the FIFA World Ranking website.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

World Cup 2010 Final: Netherlands 0 - Spain 1

Spain is #1! They beat Holland in extra time with a marvelous goal by Iniesta (116th minute.) It was a tough game with both teams missing several chances to score. Credit goes to both goalkeepers (Stekelenburg and Casillas) for playing so well. Stekelenburg could do nothing to stop the goal by Iniesta.

The Spaniards have been ranked #1 for months and after a great campaign (7 games with one fluke loss to Switzerland) they proved they deserve to be called 'best in the world.' Well done!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

New England Revolution 2 – Los Angeles Galaxy 0

Our second game with Jason exactly one year after the first one! Complete with blue cotton candy (which he does not like but I guess he remembered from last year.) May be we should make it a ritual: Go to a soccer game around July 11, eat junk food, and drink sugary liquids!

It was fun but the atmosphere was not as exciting as that of Sounders game. BTW, note the half empty stadium (by design) in the third picture. (Forget the empty second tier; That does not even count for the MLS!) You cannot see that on TV since the cameras are placed in front of the empty half. This is not Seattle…

 100710_NERevolutionVsLAGalaxy_

The game itself was not bad for NE which was rather unexpected! After all they were playing against one of the better MLS teams after they have suffered four straight losses. Revolution scored two goals in the second half and could have scored more if they were a better team. But I should not complain; My expectations were pretty low so we were pretty happy that we cheered twice for the home team.

The first goal was scored by Marko Perovic in the 66th minute; A free kick from just outside the box that drilled into the right corner of the net. The second goal was scored by Sainey Nyassi in the 74th minute off a rebound. Landon Donovan did not play for LA but the rest of the starters were present.

To commemorate the event:

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