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| Originally Posted by jdehaan i agree, the US played horribly today. Seeing as this is the first time i've seen this team play, it is hard for me to imagine that they would be ranked 5th in the world. hopefully they will play better against Italy. |
FIFA world rankings are always a bit inflated and it also depends on the location of country and their qualifying group. The USA is ranked so highly because of their quarterfinal finish in 2002 and they dominated the CONCAF qualifying group (which has teams like Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada, etc.). So compared to some teams in Europe we may not be that great, but ranking wise we're higher.
However, the USA team really is quite good but today's game it was not the same team that I've seen in the past.