Brazil in the World Cup 2010

A few days ago, after the last matches of the Qualifying, all 32 countries which will participate of the finals of World Cup 2010 were known. On November 20th, two days after  the end of the Qualifyings, FIFA updated its ranking of the World teams. Below, a screenshot of the 33 best ranked teams.

It is no surprise that most of the qualified countries are at the top of the ranking.

Spain regained the top position, which they occupied for most of 2009; Spain lost briefly the leading after being beat by United States in the semifinals of the Confederation Cup 2009. Brazil is back to second position; the difference between Brazil and Spain was of just three points in the previous ranking; since, Brazil won England and Oman, whereas Spain won Argentina and Austria – FIFA assigned 33 more points to the Spaniards than to the Brazilians.

Out of the ten top ranked, only Croatia (the tenth) is out of the World Cup. Between 11th and 20th, only Russia (13th) is out. Between 21st and 32th, the following countries are out: Czech Republic (23rd), Ukraine (24th), Israel (25th), Bulgaria (27th), Egypt (29th), Norway (31st) and Romania (32nd).

That means that there are nine countries which are not ranked amongst the best 32 in the world, but are going to South Africa anyway. Eight of them would be: Slovenia (33rd), Slovakia (34th), Ghana (37th), Honduras (38th), Japan (43rd), South Korea (52nd), New Zealand (77th) and North Korea (84th).

What’s the worst country (according to FIFA ranking) to participate of the World Cup in 2010? South Africa, host country, ranked 86th.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 4:12 pm and is filed under FIFA, countries, qualifying.