The Best Footballing Nation in The World is... St Vincent & The Grenadines???

Hear us out, we're deadly serious. By doing some painstaking research and clever formulae, we've managed to calculate that St Vincent and the Grenadines have, per person, the best footballing team in the world.

OK, let me break this down. Brazil have, according to FIFA, the 2nd best team on Earth. However, with a population of 185 million, you'd expect such an esteemed position with a plethora of talent to call upon. San Marino, with a population of just 31,000, could be forgiven for their lowly ranking of 195.

So, in order to find out who makes the best use of the resources available to them, we took the top 100 ranked countries in the world, recorded their populations, and divided them by their respective FIFA ranking points. The results were very interesting indeed.

St Vincent and the Grenadines (a tiny set of islands in the Caribbean), top the list, with an impressive FIFA ranking of 77, despite their small numbers of 120,000.

High rankers Argentina, Italy and Brazil come in at 62nd, 70th and 94th respectively, while home nations Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales manage a decent 7th, 13th and 14th.

As for England, they will be hoping new man Capello can be resourceful enough to push them up from a disappointing 74th.

And in last place? China. Then again, with 20% of the world's population, perhaps this list is being a bit too harsh.

Click continue reading to check out the poorly formatted full list, and use the comments form below to share any thoughts you may have.

(Ranking) (Country) (People per Points)
1 . St. Vincent and the Grenadines - 290
2 . Iceland - 823
3 . Equatorial Guinea - 1,190
4 . Cyprus - 1,734
5 . Guyana - 2,039
6 . Qatar - 2,156
7 . Northern Ireland - 2,193
8 . Trinidad and Tobago - 3,308
9 . FYR Macedonia - 3,665
10 . Uruguay - 4,019
11 . Croatia - 4,035
12 . Slovenia - 5,011
13 . Scotland - 5,169
14 . Wales - 5,283
15 . Norway - 5,717
16 . Republic of Ireland - 5,884
17 . Latvia - 5,945
18 . Lithuania - 6,143
19 . Oman - 6,238
20 . Moldova - 6,553
21 . Bosnia-Herzegovina - 6,726
22 . Denmark - 6,847
23 . Panama - 6,864
24 . Paraguay - 7,018
25 . Finland - 7,626
26 . Albania - 7,838
27 . Jamaica - 7,913
28 . Czech Republic - 8,005
29 . Armenia - 8,180
30 . Israel - 8,461
31 . Portugal - 8,560
32 . Bulgaria - 8,710
33 . Slovakia - 9,136
34 . Costa Rica - 9,588
35 . Greece - 10,006
36 . Congo - 10,352
37 . Georgia - 10,616
38 . Sweden - 10,727
39 . Switzerland - 11,429
40 . Serbia - 12,022
41 . New Zealand - 12,177
42 . Honduras - 12,294
43 . Guinea - 12,662
44 . United Arab Emirates - 12,882
45 . Netherlands - 14,007
46 . Togo - 14,699
47 . Tunisia - 16,161
48 . Hungary - 17,303
49 . Belgium - 17,428
50 . Belarus - 17,598
51 . Libya - 17,650
52 . Senegal - 18,019
53 . Mali - 18,922
54 . Romania - 19,704
55 . Haiti - 19,708
56 . Cameroon - 21,746
57 . Austria - 22,723
58 . Ecuador - 23,283
59 . Zambia - 24,632
60 . Cuba - 24,874
61 . Chile - 25,341
62 . Argentina - 25,956
63 . Benin - 25,957
64 . Côte d'Ivoire - 27,997
65 . Spain - 33,445
66 . Zimbabwe - 34,673
67 . Australia - 34,809
68 . Ghana - 35,627
69 . Angola - 38,429
70 . Italy - 39,524
71 . Saudi Arabia - 43,624
72 . Poland - 44,591
73 . Morocco - 45,516
74 . England - 45,544
75 . Colombia - 48,575
76 . Venezuela - 50,561
77 . Mozambique - 51,067
78 . France - 51,571
79 . Uzbekistan - 53,988
80 . Peru - 54,927
81 . Ukraine - 56,074
82 . Canada - 57,443
83 . Germany - 63,515
84 . Iraq - 64,002
85 . Korea Republic - 73,503
86 . Turkey - 81,036
87 . Algeria - 82,380
88 . Uganda - 87,989
89 . Iran - 105,807
90 . Mexico - 108,157
91 . Kenya - 111,059
92 . Egypt - 112,348
93 . South Africa - 117,336
94 . Brazil - 123,256
95 . Congo DR - 152,029
96 . Russia - 165,504
97 . Nigeria - 169,249
98 . Japan - 172,592
99 . USA - 346,513
100 . China PR - 3,306,033

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Scotland up to 2nd seedings... as long as we don't cock it up

The BBC report today that Scotland are within a chance of being 2nd-seeded in the World Cup Qualifying Draw. This comes after the news that Scotland had risen to 14th in the FIFA rankings, and that UEFA are beginning to give a greater importance to this table.

So what does that mean for Scots? Assuming that seeding is based entirely on FIFA rankings, and that there will be same number of groups as the Euro Qualifying, we look at the best, and worst, case scenarios.

Best Possible Group
Croatia
Scotland
Finland
Albania
Kazakhstan
San Marino

Worst Possible Group
Italy
Scotland
Denmark
Wales
Lithuania
Estonia

Amazing what a flip of the coin can do.

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Derby are the Most Exciting Team in the Premier League!

Goals, as I'm sure most of you will agree, are what makes football exciting. So by a simple equation, more goals=more excitement.

Using this formula, the boffins here have calculated that Derby have an astonishing rate of 3.6 goals scored in every game they play (perhaps helped the by the 6 and 4 Liverpool and Spurs respectively knocked past them).

The most boring team in the league? None other than those dullards Man Utd. No wonder with one dimensional players like Ronaldo, Giggs, Scholes, Nani, Tevez, Anderson, Rooney...

Team (Goals Per Game)
1. Derby County (3.6)
2. Fulham (3.3)
3. Tottenham Hotspur (3.3)
4. Bolton Wanderers (3)
5. Arsenal (2.8)
6. Birmingham City (2.6)
7. Middlesbrough (2.6)
8. Liverpool (2.6)
9. Portsmouth (2.5)
10. Everton (2.3)
11. Sunderland (2.3)
12. Newcastle United (2.25)
13. West Ham United (2.2)
14. Chelsea (2.16)
15. Reading (2.16)
16. Wigan Athletic (2)
17. Aston Villa (2)
18. Blackburn Rovers (1.6)
19. Manchester City (1.2)
20. Manchester United (1)

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