Wow... Brazil fell 3 places in the men´s FIFA rankings!!

Discussion in 'FIFA and Tournaments' started by AcesHigh, Sep 28, 2007.

  1. AcesHigh

    AcesHigh Member+

    Nov 30, 2005
    Novo Hamburgo
    Club:
    Gremio Porto Alegre
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
  2. Latin Pride

    Latin Pride Member

    Aug 1, 2004
    In your house
    Club:
    Olimpia Asuncion
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Everyone knows that FIFA rankings are crap

    Just like everyone knows that Brasil >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Argentina
     
  3. sportscribe

    sportscribe Member

    Jul 2, 2007
    FIFA rankings are generally inaccurate.
     
  4. AcesHigh

    AcesHigh Member+

    Nov 30, 2005
    Novo Hamburgo
    Club:
    Gremio Porto Alegre
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    Brazil won 3-1 over Mexico

    4-2 over USA

    2-0 over Algeria

    these were the last Brazil friendlies.

    in the same time, Argentina won 1-0 over Austria and lost 2-1 to Norway.

    And they passed us in the ranking??? WTF?


    Italy won 2-1 over Ukraine, tied 0-0 with France, and lost to Hungary 3-1.


    Hmmm... ok, the match against Ukraine was worth 1300 points... more than the 3 Brazilian friendlies together... because it was a World Cup qualifier.


    I hope that as soon as the south american world cup qualifiers begin again, we will be number 1 again.


    But Argentina will also win lots of points from the SA WC qualifiers. The fact they are ahead of us has no explanation since they have not won lots of points like Italy, from the WC Qualifiers!
     
  5. AcesHigh

    AcesHigh Member+

    Nov 30, 2005
    Novo Hamburgo
    Club:
    Gremio Porto Alegre
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    it seems the problem is that Brazil lost 64 points.

    but I dont find WHERE we lost those 64 points at FIFA website!
     
  6. Azuran

    Azuran Member

    Nov 15, 2006
    Toronto, ON
    Club:
    Toronto FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Canada
    Actually, Italy's matches were Euro 2008 Qualifiers.
     
  7. geego

    geego New Member

    May 14, 2006
    May it be a ranking based on a 5-year time frame? If this is the case, then Brazil would have a lot of points from the 2002 World Cup victory, that just expired.

    How does South Korea (another team that got far then) rank? Do they also lose many points?
     
  8. midknight

    midknight New Member

    Sep 5, 2005
    Paris

    Argentina actually LOST points, just not as many as Brazil (24 points less).

    The rankings have a 4 year span. Brazil had quite a few of its better results from 2003 (Gold Cup, Confed Cup) devalued over the summer. All Argentina lost during that time was friendlies.
     
  9. ThreeApples

    ThreeApples Member+

    Jul 28, 1999
    Smurf Village
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    They didn't fall 3 places. They fell from 1 to 3. That is 2 places.

    Results that were downgraded between the August and September rankings:

    From 0.2 to 0:

    7 Sept 2003 Colombia W 2-1 away WCQ
    10 Sept 2003 Ecuador W 1-0 home WCQ

    From 0.3 to 0.2:

    5 Sept 2004 Bolivia W 3-1 home WCQ
    9 Sept 2004 Germany T 1-1 away friendly

    From 0.5 to 0.3

    4 Sept 2005 Chile W 5-0 home WCQ
    9 Sept 2005 Bolivia T 1-1 away WCQ

    From 1.0 to 0.5
    3 Sept 2006 Argentina W 3-0 neut friendly
    5 Sept 2006 Wales W 2-0 neut friendly

    The biggest cause of the drop is downgrading 3 WCQ results and entirely dropping 2 more WCQ wins. Also the Argentina game from last year was chopped in half, which hurts Brazil and helps Argentina. 3 new friendly wins don't overcome that.
     
  10. mntycjX

    mntycjX New Member

    Mar 24, 2005
    New Jersey
    yo aceshigh, are the you the same aceshigh from ssc?
     
  11. Mad2Ad

    Mad2Ad Member

    Jul 28, 2005
    Leicester, Uk
    personally it really bugged me tht brazil were top after a vry poor world cup i mean they were just as bad as england and we dropped to about 12th ok we have rose a little since then.

    If you ask people from arround the world i wud say tht most wud say argentina are probably the best team in the world at the minute. allthough i dont think any team is playing at a much higher level then any1 else. rankings are always pretty bad anyway peoples own opinions are always going to different adn no one will be satisfied all the time.
     
  12. celito

    celito Moderator
    Staff Member

    Palmeiras
    Brazil
    Feb 28, 2005
    USA
    Club:
    Palmeiras Sao Paulo
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    Everybody should understand that the FIFA rankings are calculated through a moving window of the team's performances over the past 4 years. Once you understand that, you can explain any weird movements in the rankings.
     
  13. devioustrevor

    devioustrevor Member

    Jun 17, 2007
    Napanee, Ontario
    Club:
    Toronto FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Canada
    Rankings are on a 4 year cycle are they not. If I'm not mistaken you get more points for beating teams in your own confederation, so perhaps it's as simple as points from the 2003 Copa America came off the rankings score, combined with their failure to win the '06 World Cup and this is just the rankings catching up.
     
  14. AcesHigh

    AcesHigh Member+

    Nov 30, 2005
    Novo Hamburgo
    Club:
    Gremio Porto Alegre
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    yes, I am. Who are you?
     
  15. AcesHigh

    AcesHigh Member+

    Nov 30, 2005
    Novo Hamburgo
    Club:
    Gremio Porto Alegre
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    thats fine then. I just wished the website would show better which points Brazil did lose, which ones did Brazil win, etc.

    if Brazil lost points from games played 4 or 3 years and 1 day ago, those matches should be shown.
     
  16. JLSA

    JLSA Member

    Nov 11, 2003
    What about all their Copa America 2007 results being "downgraded" - that probably hurt more.

    J
     
  17. ThreeApples

    ThreeApples Member+

    Jul 28, 1999
    Smurf Village
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Copa America 2007 was within the last 12 months, so those results count in full.
     
  18. JLSA

    JLSA Member

    Nov 11, 2003
    But they were still worth less in the September rank than the August ranks.

    J
     
  19. argentine soccer fan

    Staff Member

    Jan 18, 2001
    San Francisco Bay Area
    Club:
    CA Boca Juniors
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Maybe the computer factors in Wagner Love. :D
     
  20. midknight

    midknight New Member

    Sep 5, 2005
    Paris
    :confused:
     
  21. msk06

    msk06 New Member

    Oct 1, 2007
    Australia
    I cant believe they use friendly matches in the rankings, its a joke.
     
  22. AcesHigh

    AcesHigh Member+

    Nov 30, 2005
    Novo Hamburgo
    Club:
    Gremio Porto Alegre
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    if that was the case, Brazil would earn extra cases, for the extra difficulty of the matches, since when Wagner Love plays, Brazil plays with only 10 men on the pitch.
     
  23. AfrcnHrbMan

    AfrcnHrbMan Member

    Jun 14, 2004
    Philly
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    Judging strictly from what I've seen, I think that Germany has been playing the best football since the WC.
     
  24. JLSA

    JLSA Member

    Nov 11, 2003
    [This turned into a really long post for no really sensible reason.]

    It's best to think of the rankings as the sum of four averages - one for each of the last four years, with the most recent AVERAGE being worth more. The key word here (if you haven't guessed yet) is "average".

    This is where the "problem" occurs. The rankings for each year are the sum of points gained in the year, divided by the number of games played. If the number of games rises, each game becomes worth less - in particular, big games are worth less because their point score is divided by a bigger number than before.

    Take the Copa America matches for Brazil. [The following were done in a bit of a rush so there's probably something wrong somewhere, but the whole argument should still hold]

    They were worth (across the 6 matches) - 6689 points (0 v MEX, 1297 v CHI, 1376 v ECU, 1297 v CHI, 1000 v URU and 1720 v ARG).

    In the year to August rankings there were 15 matches in the year, so once you average results out they effectively contributed 1/15th of this total to the total ranking (or 446 points).

    However, in the year to September Brazil had 16 matches, so they now only contribute 1/16th of the total (or 418 points). Other friendlies in the year get similarly "degraded" and the additional friendly gets added on. It just that any friendly victory is not enough to balance this loss because friendlies are worth so much less - the gains and losses from these friendlies are a wash overall.

    In effect, because there is now an extra "low value" match in Brazil's annual collection, all the "good matches" are worth less - and note that the "good match" collection actually includes a loss worth 0 points. (If Brazil had played no friendlies in the period between the Aug and Sep rankings, the Copa matches would have risen in value from 446 to 557, their other latest year friendlies would have also been worth more - although that would be a wash, with the result that Brazil would be miles ahead of Italy in the rankings).

    Possibly the way to think of it is this. In the August ranks, the "last year" rank included 6 Copa matches (3x weighting) and 9 Friendlies (1x weighting). Now the "last year" includes 6 Copa matches and 10 friendlies. Just using the simple weights in this suggests the average "match weight" used to be (6x3+9x1)/15=1.8. Now it is (6x3+10x1)/16=1.75. That's a devaluation to Brazil's rank caused solely by the nature of the matches they played - not a reflection of any change in their "ability" between August and September.

    The key implication of this is:
    Month to month comparisons of the rankings are misleading at best - they don't really "change" from month to month as such like the Elo ratings do; that is, they don't start with a value and adjust for new results.

    Each month is (to a significant extent) a completely new ranking methodology (which does include many similar features to the last). The reason is that the divisor in each "year average" changes capriciously - all the results are re-weighted by effects that are independent of time, it's just the number of matches that happened to be played.

    You can't explain month-to-month movements because results don't "move" as such, they are freshly calculated from scratch.

    The further implication is that - for many teams - just turning up for a match will lower your ranking score. Win, lose or draw, it would be better for your ranking to miss the plane, get a sicknote or send the women's side for an unofficial match.

    Unfortunately, teams with big points to start with (those that play continental finals for example and those that tend to win a lot) are most at risk of this effect. Brazil is an example. Next month they could easily get the opposite effect.

    J
     
  25. tomwilhelm

    tomwilhelm Member+

    Dec 14, 2005
    Boston, MA, USA
    Club:
    Fulham FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Fantastic post. Repped.
     

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