DALLAS – APRIL 28: A general view of the crowd taken during an International Friendly match between of the USA national team and Mexico on April 28, 2004 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas. USA defeated Mexico 1-0. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images).

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Tyler Erzberger

By Tyler Erzberger

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We have one final day left in the group stages, with the likes of England, Portugal, and Argentina still needing to play their ultimate match before looking towards the knockout rounds.

On Friday, we didn't see much movement at the top of the leaderboard, with France taking care of the Norway B-team and going through into the single-elimination phase with three victories.

A big question that has been discussed over the last day, though, is the battle between the two hosts that topped their groups in the United States of America and Mexico.

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Who deserves to be ranked higher?

On one hand, the Mexico backers have the cold hard fact that they won all three of their games without conceding a goal. In terms of pure statistics, they were the better squad.

For the Americans, their play on the attacking side was far more impressive, with two of their games being one-sided affairs before resting their starters against Turkey. Mexico played a majority of their best players against Czechia in their final group game. Can you really fault the USA for rotating their players before the knockout rounds?

Funnily enough, it feels as if the two nations have swapped identities this tournament. For the longest time, the Mexican team were the ones who you would look to for impressive link-up play, attacking creativity, and star players. The USA, while not as flashy, had a strong structure, phenomenal goalkeeping, and a defense that would frustrate giants.

Now, USA have a shaky goalkeeping situation and beatable backline with an explosive group upfront with Mexico going through the group stage without a ball in the back of their net.

So, who deserves to be ranked higher?

On pure play alone with their best players, I'd go the United States.

But I have to take every match into consideration, and even if they started with their B-team, the late goal to Turkey was avoidable. In that situation, even with their backups, I would trust Mexico to grind out that draw. On that, for now at least, I side with Mexico. But that will all change once the two teams play at full power next week in the knockouts.

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The World Cup Power Rankings (After Day 16)

  1. France
  2. Argentina
  3. Netherlands
  4. Brazil
  5. Spain
  6. Mexico
  7. United States of America
  8. Germany
  9. England
  10. Colombia
  11. Norway
  12. Japan
  13. Morocco
  14. Belgium
  15. Ivory Coast
  16. Senegal
  17. Portugal
  18. Sweden
  19. Switzerland
  20. Canada
  21. Ecuador
  22. Ghana
  23. Australia
  24. Cape Verde
  25. Austria
  26. Algeria
  27. Paraguay
  28. Croatia
  29. Scotland
  30. Turkey
  31. Iran
  32. Egypt
  33. Bosnia & Herzegovina
  34. South Africa
  35. Curacao
  36. DR Congo
  37. Uruguay
  38. South Korea
  39. New Zealand
  40. Saudi Arabia
  41. Jordan
  42. Uzbekistan
  43. Haiti
  44. Czechia
  45. Panama
  46. Iraq
  47. Qatar
  48. Tunisia

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