Of course, the world ranking cannot be linked to absolute strength, such as the national football team, before the Asian Cup, the world ranking was much higher than Lebanon and Tajikistan, but when you really fight each other, you know that the other party is stronger than you. The world ranking is based on the results of official international competitions, the points system is more complicated, and the difficulty of events on different continents is also different. Like Mexico and the United States, they have long enjoyed the treatment of the eldest and second in North American football, and their records are of course good, so the world ranking is very high, close to the top ten. But in fact, the teams such as Serbia and Austria, which are ranked behind them, are they really worse than them?
However, there is no doubt that the top 10 teams are indeed the strongest teams in world football. If a team claims to be a first-class team, but can't even get into the top 10, then they definitely don't have that strength. Let's take a look at who the top 10 teams are at the moment, first of all, aren't Argentina and France, the top two, the champions and runners-up of the last World Cup? And England, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Brazil and other teams also have top strength and are very competitive in the World Cup. And Croatia's tenth place also reflects their football status, Croatia is indeed weak in the first ranks.
So, which team in the top 10 is ranked the least commensurate with its strength?
Is it Italy? Italy is ranked 9th, which is reasonable. Italy has gradually come out of the trough in recent years, and although it is far from returning to the top, it has at least returned to the top ranks. And the ranking does not match the strength, in fact, it is Belgium.
What is Belgium's current ranking? That is, from the point of view of ranking, in addition to Argentina and France, it is Belgium.
But is Belgium really that good right now? Not at all. In fact, since the 2022 World Cup, Belgium has already shown signs of decline. It is said that Belgium was out of the group because of infighting, but in fact, the aging squad is also one of the reasons. Now, Eden Hazard, the representative of Belgium's golden generation, has retired, leaving only De Bruyne to support the gold, and the new generation of players has not yet reached the level of the golden generation. Therefore, Belgium today is no longer the same as Belgium, which ranked first in the world a few years ago.
In the last year or two, Belgium have maintained a relatively good ranking form perhaps because they have not faced too strong opponents. In 2023, the most important tournament is the European preliminaries, and Belgium and Sweden, Austria and other teams are in a group and do not encounter much resistance. From the beginning of 2023 to now, Belgium seems to have only played against two top teams, beating Germany 3-2 away and drawing 2-2 away to England. It can only be said that it was not satisfactory, after all, Germany was at a low point at that time.
In terms of strength, Belgium can certainly be in the top 10, but certainly not in the top three. At least, the strength of England, Brazil, Spain, is above them. Perhaps, 8 to 10 is more in line with their situation. It depends on Euro 2024 whether Belgium can prove its strength.