FIFA announced their latest rankings today and England are no longer Britain's best football team according to the stats with Chris Coleman's Wales team now two places above them.
Last time I wrote about the FIFA rankings I got called bitter for being an Englishman so I'll avoid adding too much comment here if I can with Gareth Southgate's team dropping down the rankings.
Recently it's come to light that not playing friendlies would actually help teams climb the rankings and give themselves a better chance of being seeded when it comes to tournaments, a loophole that Poland and Switzerland have benefitted from.
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England are of course damned if they do and damned if they don't as their qualifying groups are usually too boring and easy for words so they schedule more difficult friendlies and that affects their standing even if they win.
However that's not what is at play this time as Wales have jumped up to 13th in the rankings with the Three Lions dropping to 15th, just five places above the ever improving Northern Ireland.
As it happens right now the rankings won't make too much difference for England as they look certain to qualify automatically for the World Cup next summer and are too far away from being one of the top seeds for the competition.
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Wales on the other hand are unlikely to top their group so will need the qualifiers and as such will hope to be as high in the rankings in possible and seeded for the two legged games, avoiding someone like Italy.
Coleman's team are still struggling to make the play-offs right now though as they are the ninth best second place and only the top eight make it!
And if you've made it this far...THE FIFA RANKINGS ARE UTTER TRASH!
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