Germany 2006 will surely go down as the year of the underdog.
Just three games into the knockout stages, and already we have seen three of the world's top five sides ousted from the tournament, two of them failing to even make it out of the group stages. Shocking enough before you consider that these latter two - ranked second and fifth respectively by world football's governing body - failed to register a win between them as they slumped out of the same group at the hands of the world number 13 and 48.
In reality, of course, nobody was surprised to see Italy (no 13) top Group E ahead of the Czech Republic (no 2) and the USA (no 5). Ghana's progress in second place may have raised an eyebrow or two, but only fleetingly - neither eliminated side was expected to make any real impact here.
In reality, of course, nobody in their right mind pays the slightest bit of notice to Fifa's World Ranking List either. Derided and ridiculed in pubs and punditry boxes the world over, it is a generally accepted fact that these rankings bear little or no relation to reality and should under no circumstances be used as an indicator of a side's form or quality.
Which is probably fair enough. Why should we pay attention to a ranking system thought-up by an unaccountable organisation in conjunction with a soft-drink manufacturer (Coca Cola), and which consistently ranks Team USA higher than a whole bevy of countries they have never beaten and possibly never will?
Few serious followers of the game would rank Argentina as low as ninth among all nations, even fewer would dare write off Germany as nineteenth - below Japan and Egypt - and absolutely no self-respecting, St. George's Cross waving England fan would even countenance Sven's men as low as tenth.
But, just for a second, let's sit back and consider where these numbers have come from. They may appear to have been simply plucked from thin air, but in truth are established through a complicated points system which takes into account every full international match played in the last eight years. Each fixture is weighted on the basis of result, number of goals, match importance, regional strength and whether a side was home or away in the contest.
Speak it quietly, but maybe the real reason for the low ranking of many of football's traditional elite is a consistent failure to live up to their own high billing.
Germany, for instance, may have reached the final of the last World Cup but didn't win a single game as they crashed out during the group stages of the European Championships' either side of that tournament. They finished a respectable third in last year's Confederations Cup, but won only three of the eight games they played between that competition and the start of this summer's World Cup.
Argentina's win over fourth-ranked Mexico last night was widely expected, yet the Mexicans have beaten both Argentina and Brazil in competitive fixtures during the last two years, as well as reaching the final of the Copa America in 2001 and going further than Argentina at the last World Cup. England's eternally optimistic support continue to expect a 1966 repeat, but their players didn't get beyond the quarter-finals of Portugal 2004 or Japan/South Korea 2002 and failed at the group stage of Belgium/Netherlands 2000.
The system is undeniably flawed, and despite the weighting system it is clear that teams such as USA benefit disproportionately from playing most of their games against weak opposition. The amateur mathematician also can't help but be baffled by Spain's position as joint-fifth alongside America, given they have won only one knockout game in a World Cup or European Championship since 1994, and that was on penalties (against Ireland in 2002).
But whilst it would be foolhardy to accept the rankings at face value it would be equally naïve to ignore the trends they reflect. Several the supposed elite nations have underachieved significantly of late, laid bare by Greece's 2004 triumph and the semi-final berths of South Korea and to a lesser extent Turkey - a good but never great side - in 2002.
For better or for worse these slides looks to have been reversed at this tournament, with Germany, Argentina and England already through and Italy, Spain, Holland and Brazil all in confident mood ahead of their second round fixtures. It will be interesting to see how the rankings have changed when the first post-World Cup list is released on June 12. World Cup Finals matches are more heavily weighted than any other game, so short of an unlikely Australian run to the final, expect to see a number burdened national egos given a healthy boost.
