Football officials always make me chuckle when they talk about the FIFA ranking.
Let's take Gary Speed first. Two quotes from this WalesOnline article.
"the only way to remedy this situation is to win games. It’s up to the players and myself to sort this out"
"I don’t really understand the points system they use to determine these rankings and I’m sure a lot of others don’t either."
I don't expect the coach to be very knowledgeable about this subject - it's not among his responsibilities. But someone at FAW should have some knowledge. It's like saying "We want to climb in the ranking, but we know nothing about it."
Moving on to Asia - Philippines to be more exact. Dan Palami, team manager, wants the Azkals to climb to 120th from their current position of 162nd (see the interview in the Manila Times. Thanks Filipino Football!)
Grenada are 120th - with 247 points. As Philippines will be involved in a series of friendlies matches against Asian opposition it will be impossible for them to get such a high total. There are two ways: play against high ranked teams or wait until the next World Cup qualifiers. In order to have around 250 points they need to play friendlies against countries that would bring them at least 300 points (to compensate the small amount of points available against Asian opposition). In August that would mean playing against Cape Verde Islands, Malawi, Algeria, Libya or Uganda. But how likely are the Azkals to get the 3 points against such teams?
It's easy to look at the ranking table and say "Sure, we can rise to a certain position". But you also need to see what's needed to accomplish your goal.
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