The worst teams in the FIFA World Rankings

Since the early 1990s, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association has regularly compiled a ranked list of national football teams although the FIFA World Rankings have always come under scrutiny, despite countless revamps in the calculation of rankings. At the time of writing, international powerhouses Scotland and Romania are just two of the sides gracing the top fifteen positions with their inclusion, amongst the world’s elite, being, at best, contentious. However few will argue, or care, about the ranking of the nations currently banished to the dark and dingy basement of international football, as nine manacled international sides continue to struggle to climb off of the joint-bottom spot. 

First up is the national football team of Aruba. The national team, as well as all football at club level, is controlled by the Arubaanese Voetbal Bond and, as the name suggests, Aruba has connections with the Netherlands. In fact, Aruba is still part of the Realm of the Kingdom of the Netherlands although it is far more detached from colonialism than the other CONCACAF unitary state of the Netherlands Antilles. Aruba, in many ways, is quite akin to Suriname in that there is a staunchly independent vibe in the 32-kilometre long island. However, whilst Suriname produced a talent pool including the likes of Clarence Seedorf, Aron Winter and Edgar Davids, Aruba struggled to generate anywhere near the quality players its colonial cousin had done, even if most had elected to play for the European faction, The Netherlands. Instead, Aruba’s most revered footballing son of the moment is Ronny Nouwen, a 25 year old born in Rotterdam. In fact, in the past, Aruba’s national team has been made up largely of European born and bred opportunists who would get an all-expenses paid trip to the paradise climate on the fringes of the equator, by virtue of the infamous ‘grandparents rule’. However, recently, manager Azing Griever has opted to select almost wholly local, island players for the national team; the majority of the part-timers and amateurs are picked from the topflight Aruban Division di Honor, although not exclusively. This tactic has yet to pay off although, eventually, the centralised selection policy could promote the game more to the island’s 100,000 or so inhabitants and perhaps the national team can avoid their first competitive defeat since they did so at the turn of the millennium, with a 2-2 draw with Puerto Rico. On the other hand, not entering either the Gold Cup or the World Cup qualification processes due to administrative negligence in the past few years has definitely has an adverse affect on Aruba’s joint 200^th position. 

Next up is São Tomé e Príncipe and their ailing national side. São Tomé e Príncipe’s national team are most definitely not in the same category of ineptness as Aruba, in terms of recent history. São Tomé is undoubtedly the footballing hotbed of the two islands which make up the country. With 96% of the population of São Tomé e Príncipe, São Tomé has virtually provided every single player to the national team throughout the entire 21 years in which the governing body of the island’s game -Federação Santomense de Futebol - has been FIFA affiliated. Football is actually fairly popular in the country and is both the most participated sport and watched sport on both islands. Combine this with the fact that there are almost 18 league teams to split between just 157,000 people, giving the country one of the lowest league club per capita ratio in the world, and you would think that the footballing mad islands would have a fairly decent national team. Yet, despite all of this, the domestic situation is in complete disarray. The major footballing championship, a play-off between the league winners of the São Tomé and the Principe islands, has been intermittent and played on an ad hoc basis. This has obviously had a detrimental affect on the national team as the recent lack of competitive, domestic competition has coincided with the country’s decline form and thus also in the FIFA World Rankings. The fact that there is a championship this year will probably see an improvement in the national team’s form soon although the option to decline an invitation to the African faction of the 2010 World Cup qualification will make it much harder.

 

Djibouti are another side holding up the rest of the footballing world with their 200^th position in the FIFA World Rankings. Djibouti are yet to win a full FIFA sanctioned international which led to a withdrawal from 2006 World Cup qualification, after the Fédération Djiboutienne de Football were consulted by the Djibouti government, presumably for concerns over the probable knock to national pride. However this also had a knock-on effect and again restricted moving up the ranking ladder, as it denied Djibouti a chance to play in the African Cup or Nations, of which qualification is dependant on position in World Cup qualification groups. Djibouti’s participation in competitive football has actually been limited, which goes some way to explaining an unlikely prop up the rankings. The national team’s last outing was on December 20, a 4-1 defeat to Yemen and, as of yet, there has been no other friendly, never mind competitive, game arranged.

 

Presumably hidden away to prevent a public revolt back in the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II can no longer hide the embarrassment of the national - and BRITISH - game in overseas territory Montserrat. Ok, maybe that’s a bit extreme seeing as the island is far better known for being blessed with luscious, tropical beaches and crystal-clear waters than its footballing credentials, but whoever penned the island’s motto “Each Endeavouring, All Achieving” was obviously long dead by the time Montserrat began playing football on the world stage. It is pretty bizarre that, in the weakest of all of FIFA’s regional confederations (CONCACAF), Montserrat has failed to deliver the goods on even solitary occasions considering they can boast English lower league players like Tesfaye Bramble and Junior Mendes. However it is actually Montserrat’s exotic climate and geography which has left the island stagnant in the rankings; due to the heavy volcanic activity on the island since the mid 1990s, the team has only played a handful of matches. Still, manager Ottley Laborde hopes that the Blakes Estate Stadium will once again see legiitimate international football, after volcanic activity blocked participation in Gold Cup qualification in 2007.

 

Guam’s national football team is an additional substandard, FIFA-affiliated mess. Guam, by definition, is an organized unincorporated territory of the United States although it is fair to say that the island’s governing body of football, the Guam Football Association, is far from organized. However it is unfair to attack the GFA for poor organisation since they have only been established since 1975 on an island in which football is not greatly followed, due to the popularity of indigenous games like batu and bayogu. Still, the game is gaining prominence and the GFA are improving with experience - it is quite remarkable that, within such a short span of time, the GFA managed to become a member of both the Asian Football Confederation and FIFA. Still, despite tireless work and good intentions, the national team has failed to win a single match-up against another FIFA member, with a recent 9-0 demolition at the hands of South Korea being representative of Guam’s standing in both Asian and global football.

 

The United States Virgin Islands are another example of US annexation doing the footballing fortunes no good. The US Virgin Islands are, however, one of the most competent sides in the bottom rung of the rankings - they regularly beat CONCACAF opposition although, vitally, seem to choke when it comes to the competitive matches. For instance, the US Virgin Islands lie some 21 places beneath the rival British islands - aptly named the

British Virgin Islands - yet, in a recent meeting of the two sides, the USVI hammered the BVI 3-0. Domestically, football is poorly organized due to the prominence of more traditional US sports such as basketball and baseball in particular. Surprisingly though the national team seems to do pretty decent, made all the more surprising for having a petite population of just over 112,000. One of the favourite sons of the national side is undoubtedly Trinidad & Tobago-born MacDonald Taylor; Taylor is known for being the oldest ever man to line-up in an international match, at 46 years and 180 days old.

 

Continuing the CONCACAF tradition is the Belize national team. The Football Federation of Belize runs the game in the former British colony and, much like the US Virgin Islands, it’s quite a surprise to see

Belize at the foot of the FIFA World Rankings. Sure, they are a dreadful side in comparison to most CONCACAF sides but

Belize have proven themselves consistently against other regional rivals (such as 158^th placed

Nicaragua) although they also suffer from bottling the competitive fixtures.

Belize are just one of a host of micro national sides to have no qualified for any major championships. Belize’s domestic game is well organized and very departmental - it’s one of the best run structures in the whole of the CONCACAF region although the fact that it is seldom to see Belize international players making a decent name for themselves in the bigger CONCACAF leagues is representative of there still being a long way to go. Still, the recruitment of former Brazilian professional players to the backroom staff by the FFB is a shrewd move which could pay dividends in the upcoming years.

 

American Samoa are the penultimate team in the joint-bottom position of the FIFA World Rankings. Despite being

US territory,

American Samoa play in the Oceanic competitions, run by the Oceania Football Confederation. American Samoa success has been stifled by the competition of other sports on the islands, with players actually playing association football as their second, if not third or fourth, code.

American Samoa are also the owners of perhaps the most insulting record in world football: their 31-0 defeat to

Australia in the qualification for the 2002 World Cup being the biggest in history. For a benchmark of the current footballing situation in American Samoa, the recent preliminary qualification rounds of the OFC saw Samoa clinch their first ever goal (from the spot nonetheless) in World Cup qualification - it was celebrated wildly despite Samoa’s final goal difference in the group being -38. There is some good news for the nearly 60,000 inhabitants of American Samoa in that the next generation of players is looking much more competent. In qualification for the U17 OFC Championships, the national youth team managed to withstand competition on a few occasions to claim credible results - a testament to the grassroots investment of time and money by the American Samoa Football Association.

 

Finally, Timor-Leste - better known as

East Timor - are the last side currently in the bottom spot of the FIFA World Rankings.

East Timor, however, have only been members of FIFA since 2005 so it is perhaps unfair to be overly critical of the Federaçao Futebol Timor-Leste, the governing body of

East Timor. Another explanation in their lowly position is that the civil unrest in the country since independence from

Indonesia has meant that football is the last thing on the minds of the East Timorese people - in fact, the last match for

East Timor was a 8-0 defeat to

Thailand, way back in 2004. Still, there are moves in the right direction for the FFTL. After East Timor’s international debut - an AFC Asian Cup qualification match - in March 2003, the FFTL have sanctioned the participation in further AFC Asian Cup qualification campaign whilst a World Cup qualification campaign is just around the corner for South Africa 2010. Still, in their four year existence, East Timor have yet to have any success on the international stage - when that elusive first victory does come, it will provide some much needed distraction for the East Timorese people and the hostile political environment at the moment.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 2:24 pm and is filed under UEFA, football, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.