Swindon Town Article Two - Saturday 18th April 2009

With qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup well underway now, and having infact finished in the Oceania Zone, it's worth taking a peak at who the real minnows are. Well in the official FIFA ranking list there are currently six teams stuck in the wooden spoon spot in equal 202^nd with no ranking points, the sextet, comprising of San Marino, Anguilla, Montserrat, American Samoa, the Cook Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Guam the big movers down in the depths after three recent games have seen them move from no points to 34 points in just four days in mid-March, the new ranking table released on the 8^th of April having seen the Western Pacific Ocean islanders charge up to 188^th. The first of their three scoring matches being their maiden victory over a member of FIFA in which, as hosts, they beat Mongolia 1-0 in the East Asian Cup Preliminary Competition.

Guam then won again just two days later when they defeated the Northern Mariana Islands 2-1, the visitors presumably having been entrenched in defence throughout the game. They needed a last minute equaliser from Jason Cunliffee though to grab a 2-2 draw against Macau, the other results meaning that Guam had topped the group and qualified for the semi-final stages in which they will play, in Chinese Taipei, the hosts, Hong Kong and North Korea. The winner of that group then going on to play the big boys in the final, that trio being China, Japan and South Korea.

Chinese Taipei are going to have get their act together however as they are one of the big fallers down the charts in the last month, the Taiwanese having dropped down 13 places to 180th. The reason for the Republic of Formosa, erm Taiwan, erm Republic of China being called erm, Chinese Taipei, is that the People's Republic of China somewhat contradictively objects to any name containing the word China. But then they also object to Taiwan because that suggests it is a separate entity from, erm, China.

Back on the pitch and the country on the fewest points, bar the zero brigade, is the Central African Republic on a mighty four points. The Low-Ubangui Fawns as the team is nicknamed, withdrawing from World Cup 2010 qualifying for unknown reasons, along with Sao Tome e Principe at the preliminary stage of African qualifying. That then meaning that the Seychelles and Swaziland as the two highest seeds of the ten teams involved were given a bye into qualifying proper.

The Central African Republic and Sao Tome e Principe aren't the only sides to have withdrawn either as our old friends Guam, Bhutan, Eritrea and Papua New Guinea also pulled out of the race to South Africa. Ethiopia, bordering Eritrea, added to that list as they played four matches in their qualifying group before FIFA announced the immediate suspension of the Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) in late July 2008 after disagreements between FIFA and the top brass at the EFF.

Ethiopia are actually doing quite well in the rankings table as they currently sit in 99^th place, with the final country making up the top 100 being the People's Republic of China. Which makes you even more wondrous about how the points are worked out than you would have been before. The six calculation factors apparently being match result, importance of match, strength of opponent, regional strength, results in last four years, and average points per game in the last 12 months (minimum five matches).

You become even more intrigued by the mathematical formula when you see that Spain are top of the list with a bumper 1,729 points, while Germany sit in second a massive 367 points behind the Spaniards on 1,362. The rest of the top ten from third place down currently made up by the Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, England, Croatia, Russia and France, Portugal in 11^th being the last of the teams in the thousands as they have 1,013 ranking points at present.

England, in seventh, have 1,193 points, with their improved form under Fabio Capello moving them up two places last month. Their highest ever ranking being fourth while the lowest was a gruesome 27^th in February 1996, although we did reach the semi-finals in Euro 96 four months later so it can't have been all bad, apart from losing on penalties to Germany again that is.

Elsewhere in the British Isles Scotland come next in 24^th, up four places from March, Northern Ireland have then rocketed into 27^th from 42^nd, while the Republic are below their neighbours as they have dropped eight spots to 34^th. Finally come Wales all the way down in 73^rd, sandwiched between Algeria and Cyprus, that is still a long way off their worst ever ranking though of 113^th in September 2000.