On August 14th :
1.Brasil 859 2. Argentine 781 3.Spain 775 4. France 772 5.Germany 764 6. Mexico 733 7. Portugal and England 728
9. Italy and U.S.A. !!!!!!
Turkey has eleventh position with 707. Denmark 703 ; Ireland 699
and ....the Netherlands are only at 693.
My question: how come the U.S.A. has been progressing so well though soccer is not really popular ???

With the supremacy of Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France
it looks as if U.S.A. is conquering all of the sports world these days. Global village effect ??

Not sure how you want this one answered flem-ish, but there are two things. The FIFA rankings show how well teams have done in recent competitive internationals, and USA progressed well in the recent World Cup. As to the question of why they have done so well, I suppose with a country as big as America, there's always going to be someone who is interested in watching and playing soccer, and in the national league they have players from al over the world, so the knowledge and experience that these guys have can only have a 'knock-on' effect. American soccer players have been in England for years. A prime example being Brad Friedel at Blackburn Rovers. Hope this helps.

The actual method (weightings and time span) used to calculate the rankings is set out on this web page, and there's also a summary and some history on the FIFA site ... for those of us with some time to kill.