USA Women Still Number One In FIFA World Rankings

Despite the upset loss on penalty kicks in the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup final, the team USA women are still number one in the just released FIFA world rankings.

As a matter of fact, the top five didn't change despite early exits by Brazil and Germany in the quarterfinals of the tournament and the Swedes losing in the semis to the eventual world champion Japan.

The top five remain in order the USA, Germany, Brazil, Japan and Sweden

Where the movement occurred was in the second five.   England jumped four spots to number 6, France stayed at number 7 while Canada slid two spots to number 8.  Australia moved up two spots to number 9 with Norway dropping one to number 10.  .


And if you're wondering how they are calculated, here's the explanation of the formula for how they do so by FIFA.

Next update in the FIFA world rankings will occur September 23, and we'll see if it stays that way.

Canada Hosts CONCAFAF 2012 Olympic Women's Qualifier

Unlike the just concluded FIFA Women's World Cup which will expand to 24 teams when it returns in 2015, the Olympic soccer tournament only allows 12 teams to compete.

One of the spots is automatically claimed by the host nation Great Britain, so that leaves eleven spots available for the rest of the world's football playing nations who want to participate in the Olympic tournament that will run from July 25-August 11. 

The recent FIFA Women's World Championship tournament acted as the European Olympic qualifier, which is why Germany's upset loss was even more painful to their supporters.

The USA and Canadian women will get a chance to redeem themselves from their disappointments at the FIFA Women's World Cup in Germany by attempting to claim one of the two CONCAFAF spots available for the 2012 London Games for their nation.

The Canadians get the doubleplusgood news that they will be doing so on home soil.  

The Canadian Soccer Association recently announced that Vancouver's newly renovated BC Place Stadium will be the host venue for the CONCACAF Olympic women's qualifying tournament, which will take place from January 19-29, 2012.

Besides the host and 2010 CONCAFAF champion Canadians, the other nations competing for those two women's Olympic tournament spots are the two time reigning Olympic champion USA, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Canada will also be the host nation for the next FIFA Women's World Cup tournament in 2015 and were ecstatic to hear the news they snagged another high profile international sporting event.   
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"British Columbia enjoys a stellar reputation for supporting soccer and hosting major events," said Canadian Soccer Association general secretary Peter Montopoli in a statement. "We saw the success of the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2007 and the enthusiastic fan support that propelled the Vancouver Whitecaps into Major League Soccer. I can think of no better place for our women's national team to win their way to London."

At any rate, should be fun to watch and hopefully I will get to see Team USA get over their disappointment at being World Cup runners up by qualifying for London and keeping the drive for an Olympic threepeat alive.