Rankings are an impossible thing. There is no art or science that can take two teams of similar talent and say one is definitively better than the other. But by drawing comparisons to others national teams, by looking at what results are obtained, and by analyzing player pools, a better understanding of the United States’ place in the world of soccer is hopefully obtainable.
The goal of this weeklong series is to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the US team as objectively as possible through comparison with other teams throughout the world. This process will result in a lot of data being thrown your way. I’ve attempted to focus each post on the highlights of the data being presented, though I welcome comments delving deeper into what’s presented.
The Growth of the US Team
Rankings
A logical place to start answering the question of where are we, is to answer the question where have we come from. For some perspective on the situation, rankings are a good place to start. Because FIFA changed their ranking formula in 2006, it’s impossible to use those rankings to obtain a consistent measure for more than this current world cup cycle. That amount of data would be pretty meaningless. However, rankings using a modified version of the ELO rankings used to rank chess players has been consistently applied to every official international soccer match ever played. Charting the US ELO rankings from their reappearance in the World Cup in 1990 to the end of 2009 looks like this:
I’ve added an exponential best fit trend line to show the approximate path that the US has taken in the last two decades. As you can see, there is a definite up trend though there are periods of success relative to the trend line (mid 91 - mid 93, mid 95 - mid 97, and mid 99 - mid 06) and periods of underperforming the trend line.
Another way to look at this data is by the amount of time each year that the team was above plateau markers. The table below starts in 1995 (the first year that the US cracked the ELO top 30).
| Percentage of Days at or above ELO Plateau Numbers (1995-2009) | |||||
| Top 30 | Top 25 | Top 20 | Top 15 | Top 10 | |
| 1995 | 47% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 1996 | 72% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 1997 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 1998 | 21% | 1% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 1999 | 49% | 42% | 41% | 0% | 0% |
| 2000 | 100% | 100% | 69% | 0% | 0% |
| 2001 | 100% | 68% | 34% | 7% | 0% |
| 2002 | 100% | 92% | 18% | 2% | 0% |
| 2003 | 100% | 100% | 100% | 0% | 0% |
| 2004 | 100% | 100% | 92% | 29% | 0% |
| 2005 | 100% | 100% | 100% | 57% | 0% |
| 2006 | 100% | 47% | 47% | 40% | 0% |
| 2007 | 85% | 46% | 40% | 4% | 0% |
| 2008 | 100% | 82% | 74% | 10% | 0% |
| 2009 | 100% | 100% | 99% | 63% | 5% |
As you can see, besides the slip endured by sending a “B” team to Copa America, the US has been consistently a top 30 side since 2000. 2003 through 2005 can make a strong claim as the best run of form that the US has ever had with a three year run almost entirely in the top 20. However, by the rankings, the most successful single year belongs to 2009, when the team first cracked the top 10 and had the highest percentage of days in the top 15.
Qualification
Another logical place to look at the progress of the national team is the cyclic World Cup qualifying process. The CONCACAF qualifying process of three group semifinals and the “hex” finals began for the qualifying for the 1998 World Cup. In the four qualifying cycles, the US has dropped the following number of points compared to the 48 possible points in each cycle; 1998 – 17, 2002 – 20, 2006 – 14, 2010 – 13. The total of these points dropped is 64 points. 57 of those 64 points have been in at least one of the following categories: 1) away to Mexico or Costa Rica or 2) to teams with an ELO ranking worse than 50.* Significant trends exist for both of these categories.
Any serious US fan knows about the constant struggles of the US at Azteca and Saprissa. For the US to turn the corner and really be a world powerhouse, those are games that the US will eventually need to get some points from, but a consistent inability to win in those places tells us little about how the US has improved over time. The other category however, shows a more usable and positive trend:
| US Games Versus ELO 51+ teams in World Cup Qualifying Cycles | ||||
| Cycle | Wins | Draws | Loses | % of Points Taken |
| 1998 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 61% |
| 2002 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 63% |
| 2006 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 78% |
| 2010 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 83% |
As was shown with the US’ ELO rankings, compared to previous US teams, there is a trend showing continual improvement by the national team. While this data shows that the US is getting better compared to itself, how the US compares with other nations around the world will be the focus of the next installment.
* The other 7 dropped points cannot be categorized in a way creates enough observation to undertake statistically significant analysis.
