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FIFA Men's World Ranking

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The FIFA World Rankings is a system of ranking for international teams in football, carried out by the sport governing body of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). The rankings were introduced in August 1993 to make it possible to publish comparisons of the relative strengths of internationally active teams at regular intervals.

The rankings consist of all of the member nations of FIFA based on their performance in matches over the previous eight years, with the most successful teams being ranked highest. The teams are ranked using a points system, points are obtained for achieving good results in matches, and for performing well in international competitions. They are based on performances over an eight year period, though with the greatest emphasis put on the most recent matches. This means that teams with consistent good performances are highly ranked, but the rankings are fairly slow to respond significantly to changes in form. A new basis of calculation, to be introduced in July 2006, will consider only a four year period.

Other alternative systems have been devised, such as the World Football Elo Ratings, based on the Elo rating system used in chess, ranking teams on an all time basis. The UFWC (Unofficial Football World Championships) ranks teams on the number of times they have defended the Unofficial Football World Championship, an award devised solely for that purpose.

Top 20 Rankings as of May 2006
Rank Team Points
1 Template:BRAf 827
2 Template:CZEf 772
3 Template:NEDf 768
4 Template:MEXf 758
5 Template:USAf
Template:ESPf		 756
7 Template:PORf 750
8 Template:FRAf 749
9 Template:ARGf 746
10 Template:ENGf 741
11 Template:NGAf
Template:DENf		 736
13 Template:ITAf 728
14 Template:TURf 726
15 Template:CMRf 722
16 Template:SWEf 709
17 Template:EGYf 708
18 Template:JPNf 705
19 Template:GERf 696
20 Template:GREf 694

History

FIFA World
Ranking Leaders

In August 1993 FIFA working in co-operation with the Coca-Cola Company introduced a ranking system for senior national teams in order to introduce a system that gives a fair comparison of the relative strengths of national teams.[1] This system has been used by FIFA ever since, and has had some major changes to the calculation principles in its short history, with the biggest change being implemented in 1999, in order to compete with the Elo ratings which were considered a more accurate depiction of the teams' rankings.

1999 update

When the rankings were initially introduced, a team received one point for a draw and three for a victory, much the same as a league system, with points also given for performances in competitions. This was a relatively simple system, however, FIFA realised that more factors affect the result of an international match, and so in order to meet their original objective FIFA made updates to the system, so in order to create a system that gave a fair comparison of the relative strengths of national teams, and was a comprehensive as they wanted it to be, FIFA implemented changes. The major changes were as follows:

  • Scaling up the point ranking by a factor of ten
  • Changing the calculation to take into account:
    • Number of goals
    • Home or away match
    • Importance of match/competition
    • Regional strength
  • Not having fixed points for a victory or a draw
  • Allowing the match losers to earn points
  • Introducing two awards:

This has led to a system which is far more complex, but more comprehensive.

2006 update

FIFA has announced that further change to the rankings will be instituted following the 2006 World Cup. The "evaluation period will be cut from eight to four years" and the rankings will be "based on a simplified method of calculation."[2] The new calculation principles will be released to the public in Berlin during the final week of the 2006 World Cup, with the new rankings to be released on 12 July 2006.

Rank leaders

The rankings after introduction were initially led by Germany, following their extended period of dominance in which they reached the three previous FIFA World Cup finals, winning one of them. Brazil took the lead in the build up to the Template:WC, where after eight qualification matches they had lost just one, scoring 20 goals and conceding only 4 on the way. Italy then led for a short length of time due to their equally successful World Cup qualifying campaign, and later the helm was retaken by Germany. Brazil’s success in their lengthy qualifying campaign then gave them the lead for a short period. Germany led again during the 1994 World Cup, though Brazil’s victory in the competition meant they took the lead by a large margin in the summer of 1994. Brazil then led for almost seven years, until they were surpassed by a strong France team who had won both the Template:WC and the 2000 European Football Championship. Brazil's success at the Template:WC meant they retook the lead, this coupled with a Copa América 2004 victory and their continued dominance[3] mean that Brazil has held the lead ever since.

Uses of the rankings

The rankings are used by FIFA to rank the progression and current ability of the national football teams of its member nations. The data is used by FIFA for very few things, as FIFA says they are only to create "a reliable measure for comparing national A-teams".[1] However, one task they are used for is as part of the calculation to seed competitions.[4] The rankings are also used to determine the winners of the two annual awards national teams recieve on the basis of their performance in the rankings.

Seeding in the 2006 World Cup

Further information: Seeding for 2006 FIFA World Cup

Below is a table showing how the rankings (current and past standings) were used in combination with the previous World Cup performances of national teams, to determine their seeds for the Template:WC.[5] It uses the points obtained from the Template:WC and the Template:WC averaged in a 1:2 ratio respectively, added to the average amount of points that each team has at three given dates (at ratio 1:1:1), December 2003, December 2004, and November 2005. This generates a view to how well the teams have performed over the last ten years (since the rankings in 2003 include results from eight years previous to that) with a specific focus on how the teams have performed in the FIFA World Cup on previous occasions. If a team did not qualify for the previous two World Cups, their final total will be significantly less, hence the Czech Republic received a low score for seeding, despite being ranked 6th, 4th, and 2nd in the world at the given dates.

Seed Country 1. FIFA World Cup Finals 2. FIFA World Rankings Total Points
France '98
(33.3%)		 Korea Japan '02
(66.7%)		 Avg.
Points		 Dec '03
(33.3%)		 Dec '04
(33.3%)		 Nov '05
(33.3%)		 Avg.
Points
Rk Pt. Rk Pt. Rk Pt. Rk Pt. Rk Pt.
1 Template:BRAf 2 31 1 32 31.7 1 32 1 32 1 32 32.0 64
2 Template:ENGf 9 24 6 27 26.0 8 25 8 25 9 24 24.7 51
3 Template:ESPf 17 9 5 28 21.7 3 30 5 28 6 27 28.3 50
. . .
16 Template:CZEf - 0 - 0 0.0 6 27 4 29 2 31 29.0 29

Criticism

Since their introduction in 1993, the FIFA World Rankings have been the matter of much debate, particularly regarding the calculation procedure and the resulting disparity between generally perceived quality and world ranking of some teams. For example Norway were ranked 2nd in October 1993 and July-August 1995,[6] and the United States reached 4th, to the surprise of even their own players. [7]

Pre-tournament betting odds for

Wikipedia has media related to 2006.

[8][9][10] show enormous discrepancy between the comparative likelihood of victory in the tournament and the FIFA rankings at the beginning of the tournament, particularly for Germany, Ukraine, USA and Iran. Comparison of one betting table with the rankings list gives Spearman's ρ=0.69.

One thing that has been criticised[11] is that the rankings consider the performances of teams over an eight year period, and that teams' ranking positions do not correlate to their recent performances.[6] This criticism should lessen with the introduction of a new formula, reflecting results over a four year period, from July 2006.

The perceived flaws in the FIFA system has lead to the creation of a number of alternative rankings from football statisticians[6] including the World Football Elo Ratings and the rec.sport.soccer Statistics Foundation rankings.

FIFA's change of system for calculation of these rankings and their adoption of a different formula for World Cup seedings may be seen as an implicit admission of the shortcomings of the current formula.

Overview

The following is an overview of the system used from 1999 until May 2006 to calculate the rankings.

The FIFA World Ranking is a ranking of all of the senior national teams of all FIFA member associations, and all international matches are counted in the scoring, however depending on their importance, are differently weighted. Also separate rankings are used for junior teams or other representative national sides (such as the women's national team) are not included in the calculation, and mostly there are separate rankings for these, for example the FIFA Women's World Rankings.

When the calculations are made the following factors are taken into consideration:

The rankings are produced by a computer program which follows specific criteria on assigning the teams points. The calculations are clearly defined and taken into consideration there are specific factors, they are as follows:

  • Winning, drawing and losing
  • Number of goals
  • Home or away match
  • Importance of the match (multiplication factor)
  • Regional strength (multiplication factor)

Each year the seven best results for each team are the only results given full weighting and progressively less weighting is given to past results year by year until after eight years they are dropped completely. Through this system of diminishing value of past results, the rankings are designed to give a more accurate depiction of current form, than past results.[1]

At the end of each season FIFA gives to awards to the two teams who won them, they are Team of the Year and Best Mover of the year.

Interestingly, FIFA does not use the same formula to determine its rankings for women's football. The women's rankings are based on a procedure which is a simplified version of the Football Elo Ratings.[12]

Basic calculation principles

The FIFA world rankings are fundamentally the same as a league system, though on a much larger, and more complex scale. Each team can potentially win a certain number of points in each match, though the number of points awarded, in a league system depends solely on the result of the match, in the FIFA rankings far more has to be taken into account, as every team does not play all of the other teams home and away every season, as in most league systems. After the awarding of points, the teams are then organized into descending order by the number of points, with the team with the most, being the highest ranked.

Since the points allocated do not depend solely on whether a team wins, loses or draws their match, but also goals scored and conceded, the venue and importance of the match, and the relative strength of the opponent. So a win over a weak opponent will result in less points being awarded than a win over a much stronger one. This means that a match will not result in the two or three points for a win and one for a draw, as is standard in most national league competitions. The calculation is more complex since it has to incorporate the other aforementioned factors.[1]

Since the Rankings were revised in 1999 changes have taken place, one of which FIFA has dubbed the "scaling up", where the points on offer for a match have been roughly multiplied by ten, with the addition of more factors. Now teams can receive between zero and thirty points for a single match, and the leaders of the rankings have over eight hundred points.

Winning, drawing or losing

As in any football ranking system, a win will naturally bring more points than a draw or a loss, however FIFA believe awarding points simply on the basis of win, draw or loss, does not meet the requirements of a reliable and accurate world ranking system.

In order to create a better ranking system, the calculations also take into account the relative strengths of the two teams. This results in more points being awarded for beating a stronger opponent, than a relatively weaker one, it is also possible for weak teams to earn points despite a defeat if they manage to play well (i.e. they score goals, or there is low margin of defeat), though this is a small amount and will not secure as many points as the team that beat them. In the event of a match being decided on penalties, the winners receive the correct points for the victory, however the losers receive points for the draw, which they earned in normal time.

Number of goals

When calculating the points, the number of goals is taken into consideration, and once again, the distribution of the points between the two teams is also affected by their relative strengths (i.e. the lower ranked a team is in comparison to its opponent, the more points it receives for a goal scored), and as well as points being given for goals scored, they are deducted from the total for conceding. In order to encourage more attacking football, points given for goals scored are weighted far more heavily than the deduction as a result of conceding, though most teams are more concerned with the tournament or match at hand than their position in the world rankings. When a match is decided on penalties, only those scored in playing time are included in the total.

To prevent "overweighing" goals, and huge amounts of points being dealt in runaway victories, far more weighting is attached to the initial goal by each team, and progressively less points for any subsequent ones. This is done in the agreement that the goals scored are important but the most important factor is the win or loss, as in normal championship games.

Home and away games

To allow for the extra handicap incurred by playing away from home, a small bonus of three points per match is awarded to the away team. Note that to prevent this from affecting the points dealt in tournaments played on neutral territory, but with a home team, such a World Cup Finals, there are no bonus points given.

Status of a match

The relative game importance is also considered when calculating the points. The method for incorporating this into the totals points’ allocation is by multiplying the match points by a predetermined weighting. These factors are:

Factor Weighting
Friendly match x 1.00
Continental championship preliminary x 1.50
World Cup preliminary match x 1.50
Continental championship finals match x 1.75
FIFA Confederations Cup match x 1.75
World Cup finals match x 2.00

As a result of this, qualifying matches are weighted 50% higher than friendlies, continental final round matches 75 % higher and matches during World Cup finals 100% higher.

Regional strength factors

As between the various continents there are quite significant differences in national team strengths, weighting factors are worked out each year for each confederation. The basis of the evaluation and resulting factors is the member teams of the confederation's performances in intercontinental encounters and competitions, at the end of every season, a continental ranking list is calculated, based on the same criteria as the FIFA rankings. Not all the intercontinental matches are taken into account, but only matches between the strongest 25 percent of teams from each continent, with a minimum of five teams from each continent considered. This way errors that could be caused by considering matches where relatively strong teams from one confederation defeat weak teams from another, are averted.

The weightings (shown below) are applied in the form of multiplication factors for teams from the same continent. If teams from two different confederations are involved in one match then the factor applied is the average of the two continental weightings.

For 2005, the following weighting factors were applied:

Federation Weighting
UEFA x 1.00
CONMEBOL x 0.99
CAF x 0.96
CONCACAF x 0.94
AFC x 0.93
OFC x 0.93

Summary

Based on the above considerations, the total number of points credited to a team after a match will depend on the following criteria:

Where:

  • w = Points for winning, drawing or losing
  • g = Points for goals scored in this game
  • c = Points for the goals conceded
  • a = Bonus for the away team
  • s = Appropriate factor for the status of the match
  • r = Appropriate factor for regional strength
  • m = Points Received

( w + g + a − c ) s r = m

The number of points for a win, draw or loss, as well as for the number of goals scored or conceded is dependent on the strength of the opponent. In order not to punish a lack of success too severely, a negative points total is rounded up to 0.00.[1]

Examples

These examples have also been used on the Elo football ratings for a fair comparison. Here are some calculation examples to show the formula being used. For simplicity in this instance it is assumed that three teams of different strengths are involved in a small friendly tournament on neutral territory.

Note:no away team bonus, nor continental or status multiplication factors are applied.

Before the tournament the three team have the following point totals:

Team Points
A 630
B 500
C 480

As shown, team A is by some distance the highest ranked of the three: The following table shows the divisions of point allocations based on three possible outcomes of the match between the far stronger team A, and the somewhat weaker team B:

Example 1

Team A versus Team B (Team A stronger than Team B)

Team A Team B Team A Team B Team A Team B
Score 3 : 1 1 : 3 2 : 2
Points for Win/defeat +17.4 +2.6 -2.6 +22.6 +7.4 +12.6
Points for Goals Scored +5.4 +2.7 +2.3 +6.2 +4.1 +4.7
Points for Goals Conceeded -1.8 -3.6 -4.1 -1.6 -3.1 -2.7
Total +21.0 +1.7 (0.00) +27.2 +8.4 +14.6

As is shown on the table, in the case of a 3:1 win, team a receives an allocation of 21.0 points, however, since team A is a much higher ranked team, the win alone earns only 17.4 of the total points, and the much lower ranked team B still manages to earn 1.7 points. Had match been won 3:1 by the far weaker team B, they would have received 27.2 points, whilst team A would have received a negative total of points, which would then have been rounded up to 0.0. If the result had been a 2:2 draw, since it is the lower-rated team, B would have earned a few points more than team A.

Example 2

Team B versus Team C (both teams approximately the same strength)

When the difference in strength between the two teams is less, so also will be the difference in points allocation. The following table shows how the points would be divided following the same results as above, but with two roughly equally ranked teams, B and C, being involved:

Team B Team C Team B Team C Team B Team C
Score 3 : 1 1 : 3 2 : 2
Points for Win/defeat +19.4 +0.4 -0.4 +20.4 +9.6 +10.4
Points for Goals scored +5.7 +2.5 +2.5 +5.8 +4.3 +4.4
Points for Goals conceeded -1.7 -3.8 -3.9 -1.7 -3.0 -2.9
Total +23.6 (0.00) (0.00) +24.5 +10.9 +11.9

As is shown in the table above, if there had been a draw, roughly equal points would be allocated to each team, as they are roughly equally ranked, though is with a little more to C as they are ranked slightly lower. Normally, an away bonus would be included, and regional strength weighting, however, this has not been included for simplicity. For example, had the matches been played during a world cup finals round, the points would have first been doubled, as part of the competition weighting, and then the continental weightings would have been applied.

Comparison with Elo ratings

Assuming team B drew with team A and lost to team C the table now stands (decimals rounded);

Team Initial Points Final Points (FIFA) Rank (FIFA) Final Points (Elo) Rank (Elo)
Team A 630 638 = 626 =
Team B 500 515 = 493 -1
Team C 480 505 = 496 +1

As you can see, as the criticism suggests, the FIFA rankings have been slow to respond to Team Bs considerable drop in form, with despite Team Cs underdog victory, the margin between it and Team B is still ten points, whereas in the Elo rankings, team C has overtaken team B. Also in the FIFA rankings, team A despite having drawn with a team significantly lower ranked than itself, has still gained eight points, whereas in the Elo rankings has lost four. However in the Elo rankings, team B who managed a draw with significantly higher ranked team A, have lost a position in the rankings due to only a single poor result, and have overall lost almost ten points.

Further criteria

To increase the level of accuracy and objectivity of the rankings, after the 1999 revision further criteria was introduced. Firstly, the number of matches a team plays within a given period of time would be taken into account. Secondly, the importance attached to previous results would be interpreted differently.

The number of matches played

In order to ensure that an increased number of fixtures in a given season does not give a team more potential points, the rankings only consider a limited amount of results. This amount was determined by deciding how many fixtures in a season an "averagely active team" would participate in, this was agreed to be between seven and ten matches a year.

In order to prevent teams with fewer fixtures than this been disadvantaged, the calculation initially considers only the best seven results of a team. To include further results an average of them must be calculated.

For example, if a team played twelve matches, the calculation would run as;

  • The best seven of the 12 results are identified
  • The total score for these seven matches is calculated (X)
  • The total score for all 12 matches is calculated
  • This total is divided by 12 and multiplied by seven (Y)
  • The total for the seven best results is added to the seven "average" results (X+Y)
  • This total (X+Y) is divided by two for the final score

Previous results

In order to assure that the rankings best reflect team’s current form, the most recent results are of greatest importance; however attention is also paid to the results of previous years. The results from the preceding year are given full weighting, with the results from two years before given seven eighths of their value, those from three years before given six eighths, and so on until after eight years the results are dropped from calculation completely.

Awards

Each year FIFA hands out two awards to its member nations, based on their performance in the rankings. They are;

Team of the Year

Team of the year is awarded to the team whose best seven matches of the year received the most amount of points overall.

Best Mover of the Year

Best Mover of the year is awarded to the team who has made the best progress up the rankings over the course of the year. In the FIFA rankings, this is not simply the team that has risen the most places, but a calculation is performed in order to account for the fact that it becomes progressively harder to earn more points the higher up the rankings a team is.[1] The calculation used is the number of points the team has at the end of the year (z) multiplied by the number of point it earned during the year (y). The team with the highest index on this calculation receives the award. The table below shows the calculation for this award in 2002.

Rank Team Points at end of 2002(z) Points won in 2002 (y) Score (z x y)
1 Template:SENf 646 107 69122
2 Template:WALf 554 113 62602
3 Template:BRAf 856 63 53928
4 Template:CMRf 685 76 52060
5 Template:MLIf 490 99 48510

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings". FIFA. 30 May 2006.
  2. ^ "Great expectations". FIFA. 24 May 2006.
  3. ^ "Brazil riding the wave". FIFA. 18 Jan 2006.
  4. ^ "FIFA Seeding of the Teams participating in 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals". MapsofWorld.com. 31 May 2006.
  5. ^ "Entire FIFA Seeding of the Teams participating in 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals". MapsofWorld.com. 31 May 2006.
  6. ^ a b c "The world rankings riddle". BBC. 21 December 2000.
  7. ^ "FIFA adapting new world rankings". Associated Press. 02 June 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ "World Cup Odds". 02 June 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ "World Cup odds". Centrebet. 02 June 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ "Outright Win & Place odds in World Cup 2006". IASbet.com. 02 June 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ "FIFA Rankings". Travour.com. 01 June 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ "FIFA Women's World Ranking Methodology". FIFA. 30 May 2006.

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