Saturday, July 01, 2006

World Cup Ratings have #13 Italy vs. #19 Germany and #7 Portugal vs. #8 France

The ANNOTICO Report

FIFA 2006 WORLD CUP RANKINGS ============ Rank	Team	Pts: May 06
1	Brazil	827
2	Czech Republic	772
3	Netherlands	768
4	Mexico	758
5	USA	756
5	Spain	756
7	Portugal	750
8	France	749
9	Argentina	746
10	England	741

11	Nigeria	736
11	Denmark	736
13	Italy	728
14	Turkey	726
15	Cameroon	722
16	Sweden	709
17	Egypt	708
18	Japan	705
19	Germany	696
20	Greece	694
21	Tunisia	693
22	Uruguay	689
23	Iran	686
23	Croatia	686
25	Romania	685
26	Costa Rica	683
27	Columbia	681
28	Senegal	679
29	Poland	677
29	Korea Republic	677
31	Ireland	671
32	Cote d'Ivoire	669
33	Paraguay	653
34	Saudi Arabia	651
35	Switzerland	648
36	Morocco	646
37	Russia	645
37	Bulgaria	645
39	Ecuador	631
40	Norway	627

Therefore Portugal #7 vs France #8  and Italy #13 vs Germany # 19 

If these Listings  raise your Eyebrows it is All Explained at

FIFA World Ranking- - - OVERVIEW OF BASIC PRINCIPLES AND METHOD OF CALCULATION

http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/

rank/procedures/0,2540,3,00.html

The Complete Rankings of 205 World Cup 2006 Teams by FIFA  can be found at:

http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/

index/0,2548,All-May-2006,00.html

ITALY

The Italian national football team is one of the most successful in the history of the game, with this being their 16th appearance at the finals and having won three World Cups.

But only one of those victories has come since the war and even that was over twenty years ago(1982).

In qualifying the Italy squad were impressive, winning seven of their ten matches and with the only defeat coming away to Slovenia back in 2004.

With recent tournament exits on penalties and through golden goals, their sole European Championships win of 1968 remains Italy's only other post war success.

The Azzurri was rated in 2006 as only the 13th best team in the World

Marcello Lippi fulfilled his dream of becoming coach of the Italian squad after Euro 2004! . His coaching career has seen him win five league titles at Juventus as well as the Champions' League and he continues to perform at the highest level with just two of his first 17 games ending in defeat.

Italy World Cup Squad

Goalkeepers Gianluigi Buffon, Angelo Peruzzi and Marco Amelia

Defenders Fabio Cannavaro, Gianluca Zambrotta, Alessandro Nesta, Fabio Grosso, Cristian Zaccardo, Massimo Oddo, Andrea Barzagli and Marco Materazzi.

Midfielders Gennaro Gattuso, Andrea Pirlo, Mauro Camoranesi, Daniele De Rossi, Simone Perrotta, Francesco Totti and Simone Barone.

Forwards Alessandro Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi, Luca Toni, Alberto Gilardino and Vincenzo Iaquinta.

Italian football is renowned for the combination of defensive solidity and attacking flair, just the recipe to put the Italy top scorer in with a chance of winning the golden boot.

Christian Vieri could well be Italy's top scorer at the finals. He has scored 23 goals from his first 49 appearances at international level and yet at time of writing his Golden Boot odds look worthy of support.

The ANNOTICO Reports are Archived at:

Italia USA: http://www.ItaliaUSA.com (Formerly Italy at St Louis)

Italia Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com

Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net