US Falls To Its Lowest Spot In 16 Months In The New FIFA Rankings

The U.S. men's national team is ranked 23rd in the October FIFA Rankings, its lowest position since June of 2013.

It's a six-spot drop from September.

It's not a huge deal. FIFA's rankings are horribly flawed and don't take into account meaningful metrics like margin of victory.

In addition, the U.S. has spent its post-World Cup friendlies trying to incorporate new players into the team. Since losing to Belgium in Brazil the U.S. has played three friendlies, beating the Czech Republic 1-0 and drawing both Ecuador and Honduras 1-1.

During that same period, a bunch of European teams were able to amass FIFA ranking points while playing Euro 2016 qualifiers (which are worth more 2.5-times more points than friendlies).

So yeah, don't freak out too much. Soccer fans would love to ignore these rankings entirely, but FIFA uses them to determine World Cup groups, so they aren't entirely irrelevant.

The U.S. plays Colombia and Ireland in its next round of friendlies in November. Its next meaningful competition is the 2015 Gold Cup next summer.

Here's the top-30 (full ranking here):

1. Germany
2. Argentina
3. Colombia
4. Belgium
5. Netherlands
6. Brazil
7. France
8. Uruguay
9. Portugal
10. Spain
11. Italy
12. Switzerland
13. Chile
14. Croatia
15. Algeria
16. Costa Rica
17. Mexico
18. Greece
19. Ukraine
20. England
21. Romania
22. Czech Republic
23. USA
24. Slovakia
25. Ivory Coast
26. Bosnia and Herzegovina
27. Ecuador
28. Iceland
29. Austria
30. Russia