[boundngag]

According to the Fifa rankings, England are the 3rd best team in the world. I was just wondering how these rankings are worked out? Ranking systems are supposed to at least be vaguely related to reality. Whoever works the Fifa rankings out must be dying of embarrassment.

I was also wondering about the qualification groups. England always seem to get easy groups (even when we failed to qualify under McClaren, it wasn't the most difficult of qualification groups). This is to some extent due to England's Fifa ranking, which is always inaccurately high (not usually as high as 3rd!). But even so, England never seem to get the toughest opponents possible in the different seeding pots. Maybe if we had been given tougher qualification groups in the past, expectations at tournaments would never have reached such stupid levels (especially at the height of the 'golden generation' era, when everyone seemed to think we were one of the best teams in the world, when we clearly weren't).

The comparison I would make (even though I don't like them) is with Manchester City. Last season, they got prettymuch the toughest group they could possibly get in the Champions League and they subsequently did not qualify from the group stage. I don't recall England ever getting close to the toughest qualification group they could possibly get.It just seems odd to me that in qualification, England always seem to get an easy ride, which doesn't really prepare them for the opposition that they will face in the actual tournament. Maybe a tougher qualification group would be helpful in this way?