London, Aug 28: England coach Fabio Capello has dismissed the relevance of FIFA's rankings after seeing his team rise to fourth.
England jumped above Uruguay and Brazil over the last month despite winning just five of its nine matches since exiting the 2010 World Cup in the last 16.
“I am happy, but the ranking is only one value,” Capello said. “That is only the table. It is better to win games.”
England, which won its only major title at the 1966 World Cup, is ahead of Uruguay, which followed up its World Cup semifinal appearance by winning the Copa America last month.
England's friendly against the Netherlands was called off last month due to London's riots, but Bert van Marwijk's side still managed to end World Cup-winner Spain's 13-month reign on top of the rankings, while Germany is third.
Although the Dutch are top-ranked they are yet to win anything apart from the 1988 European title.
“First are Holland, but they never won the World Cup,” Capello said. “They played in three finals and lost them all and they only won one European Championship.
“Always we speak about Holland as being one of the best teams in the world but the best team is the one who played the best football. Holland are first in the rankings but they don't have a lot of titles.”
The rankings take results across four years into account and have often proved difficult for fans to understand. AP
