Japan finishes 9th in 2010 World Cup rankings

Here's something I'm sure I'll be hearing about on the news for the next few days.

By virtue of holding off losing for the longest amount of time, Japan finished on top of the teams knocked out in the 2nd round of this year's World Cup to finish 9th overall. The top four followed the matches and were followed by Argentina, Brazil, Ghana and Paraguay. The US was 12th and England was 13th, which has caused much dismay there.

While the Spain/Netherlands shootfight final ended up with the 4th highest rating for a soccer match in the US, it only got an 11.4 for the first half and a 15.4 for the rest of the match which is not surprising since the game started at 3 in the morning and didn't finish until around 6 AM. The Japan/Denmark Group Stage match that was on at the same time got a 30.5/40.9.

A surprising run by Japan that was quite fun to watch. I caught three of the games (Netherlands, Denmark, Paraguay) at a public viewing at the Ginten Plaza with friends.



Links:
CBS with the final ranking list
Asahi article on the ranking
Japanese Wiki article about the Japan matches and the final