Spain Finishes 2008 as the World’s Top Team

Posted by Zane | Filed under Uncategorized

FIFA released its final list of world rankings for 2008 by placing Spain at the top of the list and naming them this year’s “Team of the Year”.

Since winning UEFA Euro 2008 the Spaniards have remained perfect, capping off a memorable year for Spanish soccer.  Spain’s biggest challenge came in its match against Italy in the Euro 2008 Quarterfinal when Spain defeated Italy in penalty kicks.

For all you USA fans…in a down year (or couple of down years) for U.S. Soccer, the U.S. team finished out 2008 ranked 22nd–an incredible fall from their terribly inflated 4th place ranking two years ago.

Surprisingly, the Brazilians finished out the year ranked 5th–Brazil’s lowest ever year end ranking.

The top 25 teams at the end of 2008 include:

  1. Spain
  2. Germany
  3. Netherlands
  4. Italy
  5. Brazil
  6. Argentina
  7. Croatia
  8. England
  9. Russia 
  10. Turkey
  11. France
  12. Portugal
  13. Czech Republic
  14. Cameroon
  15. Ukraine
  16. Egypt 
  17. Paraguay
  18. Israel
  19. Nigeria
  20. Greece
  21. Romania
  22. USA
  23. Uruguay
  24. Switzerland
  25. Ghana

Source: FIFA.com

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Read more | Comments (3) | December 17th, 2008