The USMNT plummets in Concacaf rankings after Nations League disaster | OneFootball

The Concacaf national team rankings have been updated following the March international window, and the news isn't good for the U.S. men's national team.

The Americans have plummeted all the way to fourth in the index -- the same position as their finish in the recent Concacaf Nations League play -- in Wednesday's update. That's the lowest the U.S. has ever been in the regional index since the index was launched in 2018.

The rankings don't exactly reflect the Nations League order of finish. While Mexico tops the rankings, Canada sits second and Panama third, very narrowly above the U.S. squad.

Mauricio Pochettino's squad is also expected to fall to No. 21 when the FIFA World Rankings are released in early April, which would be their lowest standing since the pandemic began.

What it means

The good news is that neither of these pieces of news have a whole lot of material consequences. Concacaf will use its national team ranking systems to guide its draw for the upcoming 2025 Gold Cup. But because Mexico is the defending champion and also the top-ranked nation in Concacaf currently, the key for the Americans is just to be in the top four spots.

That fourth-place standing guarantees that the Americans will still recieve one of the top group seeds in the tournament, though because they are fourth, they will now be seeded in Group D. Presumably that would put Mexico and the U.S. on a semifinal collision course if both teams top their group, although the exact details of the tournament schedule and bracket have not yet been announced.

As the region's perennial powers, the U.S. and Mexico generally havedn't been drawn against each other in Concacaf tournaments until the final. But there have been occasional exceptions, including in the 2022-2023 Nations League when it was Mexico's low ranking that caused the teams to contest a semifinal instead.

As for the world rankings, they're immaterial for the time-being because the U.S., Mexico and Canada are co-hosting the upcoming World Cup and as a result will recieve the top seeds in their groups regardless of their world ranking at that point.