Given that Poland head into the tournament as its lowest-ranked side (65th), such pessimism is perhaps appropriate, even though their poor ranking is exacerbated by a problem all hosts face, the weighting Fifa, the world governing body, gives to competitive qualifiers compared to friendlies.
Niger is desperately poor, ranking last of the 187 countries in the 2012 UN Human Development Index.
Our post-school further education is poor, ranking 36th, just above Germany and below Italy.
But UCL dropped a place in the overall table to sixth due to a poor ranking in mechanical engineering and a few other subjects.
Arkansas is twice as rural as the national norm and poor, ranking 47th in per-capita income — and for much of its history was outside the American mainstream.
The poor ranking is a rare blemish for Ford, whose sales and profits have been surging amid a product renaissance that has greatly improved its reputation.
(Tunisia's poor ranking, at 62nd, was due to the introduction of a new share-trading system that corrected past overpricing).
Those rated highly will then be able to charge higher fees - while those struggling to provide quality teaching risk losing fee income as students shun them because of their poor ranking.
In 2007, David Cameron, then leader of the opposition, responded to Britain's poor ranking in the UNICEF table by pledging to make it "the most family friendly country in the developed world".
