USMNT - FIFA WORLD RANKING HISTORY - 1992-2009 (Part One)
Part One Of A Chronological Journey Tracking The USMNT's All Time FIFA Ranking
The United States Men’s National Team was most recently ranked #10 in the world. This means that the USMNT rose a total of ten spots from their previous ranking. This is the best ranking for the United States Men’s National Team since May of 2006. This doesn’t come as a complete surprise since the US Men’s team has had a trophy-filled summer but let’s be honest it certainly feels good to finally have some global recognition…and we are just getting started.
Famously the USMNT failed to qualify for a World Cup between the years of 1950-1990. That was a time period of 40 years where (let’s be honest) the US men’s soccer team was not very good. Since 1990 the team has been improving year-over-year. Fortunately for the US Soccer Federation’s overall well-being (including us fans) the FIFA rankings were not a thing until 1992. I can’t imagine the FIFA ranking the USMNT would have received in those 40 years…in fact, I don’t even want to imagine.
Since ‘92 the USMNT has been all over the map in the FIFA World Rankings and today we will profile this timeline. Throughout this article State Of Soccer Weekly will break down the USMNT FIFA World Rankings since ‘92. I will discuss why certain USMNT teams were either ranked high or low & we will even feature clips to support these rankings.
Lastly I think it is only fair to feature the Mexican National Team in these rankings. In the most recent ranking on August 12th the USMNT only trails El-Tri by one position. As anyone reading this article knows…this rivalry has only grown more-and-more intense over the past couple of decades. I think it would do this matchup a disservice not to feature both teams chronologically while focusing mainly on the USMNT.
So let’s get started…!
USMNT FIFA WORLD RANKINGS - 1990’s (12/92-12/99)
Pre-dating the official FIFA World Rankings in December of 1992 the USMNT started to make some ‘moves’ on the international scene by qualifying to the 1990 FIFFA World Cup. The famous goal scored by Paul Caliguiri in the 1990 World Cup qualifier against Trinidad and Tobago opened up the flood gates for USMNT success. This historic moment is often times considered the greatest moment in United States Men’s National Team history.
Why does a World Cup qualifying goal scored in 1989 pre-dating the 1990 World Cup matter…?
This goal allowed the USMNT to set their sites on competing with the world’s best. So by the time the December 1992 inaugural FIFA World Rankings were published…the USMNT was ranked #24 in the world:
The December 1992 USMNT team featured a starting XI that would be quite recognizable to any USMNT fan in present day. Many of these players: Tony Meola, Marcelo Balboa, Paul Caliguiri, Peter Vermes, Eric Wynalda, Dominic Kinear, and Cobi Jones are household names today for a number of reasons. Today these players are somewhat recognized as the founding fathers of modern-day U.S. Soccer.
The 3rd place match at the 1992 King Fahd Cup was the last game played for the USMNT prior to the December 31st, 1992 FIFA World Rankings. The U.S. qualified for this tournament following their 1991 Gold Cup Championship (the first Gold Cup title for the United States). The US would go on to beat Ivory Coast 5-2 securing themselves a 3rd place finish in the tournament.
Interesting fact; in later years this tournament would become known as the Confederations Cup.
The next major event in the timeline of the USMNT ranking was the 1994 FIFA World Cup. The ‘94 World Cup was hosted in the United States between June 17 – July 17, 1994.
On June 14th, 1994 the FIFA World Rankings were released only a couple of days prior to the USA World Cup. In these rankings the USMNT was ranked at #23. El-Tri was ranked at #16 but the USMNT was poised to show the world what they could do on their home soil.
The 1994 World Cup for the USMNT was a great success. The US would advance to the knockout stage where they would ‘bow’ out against the eventual tournament champion, Brazil. The most famous match for the US during their World Cup was against Colombia when the USMNT famously defeated them 2-1 at a sold out Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
This match featured the below XI (some familiar names from their first ranking in ‘92 on this World Cup squad):
Our next milestone for the USMNT in the FIFA World Rankings comes during the February 28th, 1998 editions of the FIFA World Rankings. The USMNT would reach a then record high #12 in the world rankings.
At the time of these rankings the USMNT were coming fresh off of a run to the finals in the memorable 1998 CONCACAF Gold Cup. For any older USMNT fan(s) reading this article you might remember the famous semi-final match where Kasey Keller was absolutely incredible against a stacked’ Brazil team. The USMNT defeated a then world ranked #1 Brazil team with the help of Keller’s 10 saves (majority at point blank range). The performance was so good that Brazil’s super-star Romario stated ‘it was the best performance in goal he’s ever seen."
In fact Kasey Keller’s performance was so incredible that it was features in a song titled ‘Kasey Keller’ by the artist, Barcelona. I actually referenced this song and performance by Kasey Keller in my ‘Top 5 American Goalkeepers of All Time’ video back in February. Keller is featured at minute 3:00 in the video below:
The USMNT would then enter the 1998 World Cup in France with a new team record ranking of #11 in the world. Unfortunately for the US they would completely underperform during this World Cup.
The US would fail to qualify and drop 8 places in the rankings to #19 following the World Cup. This would ultimately kick-start free-fall in the FIFA World Rankings for the USMNT. The US would drop another 12 places over the course of the next 12 months into 1999…ranked at #31 in the June 16th, 1999 edition.
The 1990’s for the USMNT was a major success. Despite their abysmal performance at the ‘98 World Cup they were able to qualify for all three World Cup’s in the 1990’s, and even host the World Cup on their home soil. It’s evident that the USMNT trailed El-Tri throughout the 90’s in terms of rankings (see above)…but that would eventually change.
Let’s now move into the 21st century. I will turn my attention to the 2000’s and we will profile the best decade of soccer (in my opinion) for the USMNT to-date.
USMNT FIFA WORLD RANKINGS - 2000’s (1/19/2000 - 12/16/2009)
The United States Men’s National team would start the 21st century ranked a respectable #22 in the FIFA world rankings. Since it is the start of a new century for the USMNT I would like to feature their starting lineup for the first game of the century when the US took on Iran. The match was played in front of 50,000+ at the Rose Bowl. Bruce Arena was then the head coach of the USMNT and game resulted in a 1-1 draw.
The first World Cup of the 21st century would then be held only a couple of years later in Japan & South Korea. The final FIFA World Rankings going into the World Cup would be posted on 5/15/2002. The USMNT would be ranked #13 and for further reference, Mexico was #7. This World Cup performance for the USMNT was their best in modern times. The U.S. would go on to make a run all the way to the Quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup.
This United States team would not only beat #5 world ranked Portugal in group stage, take down their main foe El-Tri (#7 world ranked) in the ‘round of 16, but they would eventually lose to Germany in quarter final game that featured a terrible call (pre-VAR). German defender Torsten Frings blatantly deflected the ball off of the goal line with his left hand.
In the next edition of the FIFA rankings following the World Cup the US would jump to #10, but just to think how high they could have gone had they beaten Germany in that QF match. I guess we’ll never know…
Following the 2002 World Cup the USMNT would enjoy roughly a four year run leading up the 2006 World Cup where they would never drop below #15 in the world. During this four years span’ the United States would position themselves to make a deep run in ‘06 World Cup. The below ranking shows how consistent this USMNT team was from July ‘02 to July ‘06.
At the top of their game the USMNT would reach an all time high of #4 in the world leading up the 2006 World Cup in Germany. With all of this anticipation certainly the U.S. would avenge their unfortunate exit from the World Cup four years prior….unfortunately not. The U.S. would fail to advance out of group state. In one of the most disappointing World Cup’s to date the USMNT ranked #5 in the world would fail to even win a match.
So what happened next….how did the USMNT respond to this disappointing performance in Germany?
…They dropped really far in the FIFA World Rankings.
In fact by the end of 2006 the US would be ranked #31 in the world. At that point the only direction the USMNT could go was up…and up they certainly did…
The USMNT would then slowly creep its way up the FIFA World Rankings winning the 2007 Gold Cup and even finishing second at the 2009 Confederations Cup. Following their famous win over Spain in the 2009 Confederations Cup and eventual 4-3 loss at the hands of the champion, Brazil…the USMNT would find themselves at #12 in the world.
This tumultuous turning of events during the late 2000s is a great place to cap’ off part-one of this article (I’m also running over my 102KB limit in this article) so the 2010s & 2020s will have to wait until part two.
I hope you enjoyed this part-one of this week’s article.
Stay tuned for part-two which will be released in the next couple of days!