By Graham Barnstaple
June 6 2012

In the latest FIFA International rankings Scotland have somehow moved up seven places to 41st, despite being hammered by USA in May! 

Scotland’s ranking rose seven places despite losing five one away to theUSAlast month, this is a remarkable achievement! It all appears to be smoke and mirrors to me….when we win games we seem to fall back, maybe we should lose all of our games to help our ranking.

Looking at the FIFA website we picked up 0 points for theUSAgame, no surprise, and if anything we should have had points taken off us! But given the way the calculation works over a four year period our points rose by 15!

The good news is we are still ahead of Maliand Libyain the rankings but still a bit behind Waleswho are 38^th.

The SFA will spin this is great news for theScotlandteam and Craig Levein, but surely it is only masking the truth. We should have been able to rise even further if we had won, or drawn in theUSA. The last couple of weeks have shown how good theUSAactually are, losing 1-4 toBraziland then drawing 0-0 withCanada.

This will cover up the fact the trip toAmericawas a major let down and appeared to be a jolly for players and staff and led to the embarrassment of defeat from the only team who wanted to win.

Levein, for me, has got off the hook over the whole trip to theUSAand this will now be swept under the table by the SFA given the success of moving up seven places in the rankings.

Will he be capable of leading us toBrazilin two years time, who knows but I have my doubts.