New Fifa Rankings (14 Sep 2005)

[BlazingHeader]

1 Brazil 0
2 Netherlands +1
3 Argentina -1
4 Czech Republic 0
5 Mexico 0
6 France +3
7 USA -1
8 Spain 0
9 Portugal 0
10 Sweden +5
11 England -4
12 Turkey 0
13 Italy 0
14 Denmark +4
15 Germany -4
16 Japan +1
17 Poland +5
18 Iran -3
19 Costa Rica +2
20 Greece -2

The latest edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking is heavily shaped by the 89 FIFA World Cup™ qualifiers and nearly 40 friendly matches played last month. Brazil are still the clear leaders, but the Netherlands move up one place into second, their highest position for more than ten years. Zidane's comeback also propels France (6th, up 3) up the ranking, while Sweden (10th, up 5) return to the top ten after an absence of exactly nine years.
Other significant climbers include Denmark (14th, up 4), Poland (17th, up 5), Cameroon (22nd, up 6), Tunisia (23rd, up 8), Senegal (35th, up 5), Switzerland (38th, up 4), Belgium (47th, up 5) and Australia (50th, up 7).

Outside the top 50, a number of teams jump ten places or more, including Togo (54th, up 12), Venezuela (57th, up 10), Bosnia-Herzegovina (67th, up 11) and Scotland (74th, up 12). Northern Ireland (101st, up 15) are also part of this select group, not least thanks to their sensational victory over England which also secures this month's highest points tally.

Six teams - Poland (17th), Togo (54th), Panama (76th), Botswana (96th), Liechtenstein (123rd) and Andorra (125th) - are currently in their highest position since the inception of the ranking in 1993. Meanwhile, Tunisia, Togo, Ukraine, Panama, the USA and Switzerland are leading the race to be crowned Best Mover of the Year 2005.

[gunner_21]

So USA beats Mexico and drops one spot while Mexico remains 5th. :rolleyes:

[Reccossu]

I guess that doesn't help the US's slim seeding chances any does it.

[ursula]

Really, the US's chances on nabbing a seed has always been 99% dependent on two higher ranked teams (most likely France and Spain) not qualifying for Germany.

[Craig P]

So USA beats Mexico and drops one spot while Mexico remains 5th. :rolleyes:Our dropping one spot has more to do with France (gained, like, 40 points) than us (level at 768 points), although it's certainly a little surprising that we didn't get even a modest bump out of the win over Mexico.

[California Jack]

Regions with Top-20 sides

UEFA: 13
Concacaf: 3
Conmbeol: 2
AsianFC: 2
CAfricaF: 0
OceaniaFC: 0

Does anyone know whether Concacaf has ever had 3 top-20 sides previously?

[mfw13]

This is what makes these rankings so bamboozling....the USA beats the 5th best team and gains 0 points, while European teams get mediocre results and gain tons of points:

Denmark +25 points (HW vs. Georgia, AD at Turkey)
Russia +14 points (AD vs. Latvia, HW vs. Liechtenstein, HD vs. Portugal)
Switzerland +21 points (AW at Cyprus, HD vs. Israel)
Israel +20 points (AD vs. Switzerland, AW vs. Faroes)
Belgium +23 points (AL vs Bosnia, HW vs. San Marino)

Also, I'm trying to figure out how Australia gained 25 points for beating the Solomon Islands.

Let's face it, if everyone else is getting 8-10 points for wins over medoicre opponents, should the US' home win over Mexico gain us at least a few points (even if it is replacing another pretty good result)?

[newtex]

Regions with Top-20 sides

UEFA: 13
Concacaf: 3
Conmbeol: 2
AsianFC: 2
CAfricaF: 0
OceaniaFC: 0

Does anyone know whether Concacaf has ever had 3 top-20 sides previously?


For almost all of 2003: Mexico, U.S., and Costa Rica were all in the top 20.

[eldiablito]

This is what makes these rankings so bamboozling....the USA beats the 5th best team and gains 0 points, while European teams get mediocre results and gain tons of points:

Denmark +25 points (HW vs. Georgia, AD at Turkey)
Russia +14 points (AD vs. Latvia, HW vs. Liechtenstein, HD vs. Portugal)
Switzerland +21 points (AW at Cyprus, HD vs. Israel)
Israel +20 points (AD vs. Switzerland, AW vs. Faroes)
Belgium +23 points (AL vs Bosnia, HW vs. San Marino)

Also, I'm trying to figure out how Australia gained 25 points for beating the Solomon Islands.

Let's face it, if everyone else is getting 8-10 points for wins over medoicre opponents, should the US' home win over Mexico gain us at least a few points (even if it is replacing another pretty good result)?

With the rankings, teams that have played a lot of games in a 12-month span eventually come to a point where it is difficult to really gain any more points. The European teams (particularly the ones you've mentioned) have not played that many games--so virtually any game they play is going to boost their ranking.

[Sempre]

Anyone know what Turkey are doing so high? They
are in front of Italy but Turkey have a much smaller
chance of qualifying of Italy, who have a 5 point
lead in their group.

[newtex]

Anyone know what Turkey are doing so high? They
are in front of Italy but Turkey have a much smaller
chance of qualifying of Italy, who have a 5 point
lead in their group.

Not really but FIFA rankings are not based on chances of qualifying or on leads in qualifying groups.

Look at Spain. They are 2nd in their group but are 8th on the FIFA list.

Serbia is in first but 48th on the FIFA list.

[mfw13]

ElDiablito....its true that the US has played a lot more matches than some of the Europeans, but the win over Mexico is our best result of the year (and significantly better than our 7th best result), so it should definitely have gained us some points, don't you think?

[Sempre]

Not really but FIFA rankings are not based on chances of qualifying or on leads in qualifying groups.

Look at Spain. They are 2nd in their group but are 8th on the FIFA list.

Serbia is in first but 48th on the FIFA list.

No; I mean Turkey are not performing well enough to be
12th in the rankings--as witnessed by their place in WCQ.
(They've lost some games and Italy are unbeaten for about
11 straight now.)

[ThreeApples]

ElDiablito....its true that the US has played a lot more matches than some of the Europeans, but the win over Mexico is our best result of the year (and significantly better than our 7th best result), so it should definitely have gained us some points, don't you think?Mexico is probably not the best result of the year according to the FIFA formula (I rate the 3-0 win over Costa Rica and the Gold Cup win over Jamaica higher). The CR result is higher because of the third goal, and the Jamaica result is higher because of the 1.75 multiplier for the Gold Cup. Also, this year there is not a tremendous difference between the values of the #1 and #7 results for the USA.

But what do I know? I still expected an 8-14 point gain for the USA.

[SectionX]

These are ok rankings. Sweden finally gets the treatment the team deserve.

In August and September we went 3-0 and beat czech rep (away), Bulgaria(home) and Hungary.(away)

[ExpatSwede]

The czech game was at home.

[eldiablito]

ElDiablito....its true that the US has played a lot more matches than some of the Europeans, but the win over Mexico is our best result of the year (and significantly better than our 7th best result), so it should definitely have gained us some points, don't you think?

Unlike Noah, I had correctly guessed USA would make minimal gains and still be behind Mexico. (Check out somewhere in old seeding thread). I realize this was more lucky on my part while Noah's numbers are still correct. I didn't guess 0 points, but around 2 iirc. On my own, I had guessed France would make large gains, but I also expected them to be nipping USA's heals rather than surpass them--but as you see, there is only a hair separating them.

Anyway, I realize I am about to detour this thread into super math-geekdom, and so I apologize in advance. I think it's the only way to illustrate why teams like USA and Mexico are not going points to the degree the European teams will. USA has played 19 games in the past 12 months. Mexico has played 28!! Many European teams like France have played 10.

Suppose you are taking a biology class and the professor says your grade will be based solely on quizzes that are worth roughly 40 points each. He goes on to say that since it is virtually impossible to get all 40 points on any quiz, you can take a quiz anytime you wish AND that your best 7 quizzes will comprise your score. However, he notes that Johnny USA and Jose Mexico choose to take quizzes a lot more frequently than the rest of the class. And it doesn't seem entirely fair that Johnny USA has 19 chances to come up with his best 7 quizzes--after all, his rank in the class should be commensurate with his aptitude when comparing him to his peers. Therefore, Professor FIFA adopts a formula to account for this. Instead of your 7 best quizzes, (if you've taken more than 7) it will be X = your 7 best scores. Y will be the average of all your quizzes multiplied times 7. The average of X + Y will be your grade.

So for an example for the sake of argument, Johnny USA has scored
13
33
26
25
31
33
14
30
32
30
33
0
28
5
18
22
11
30
30

So X = 222
Y = 163.58
grade = 192.79

Now before Johnny took those last 3 quizzes (the top 3 scores in the list) this would be his grade:
X = 219
Y = 162.75
grade = 190.88

As you can see, that's minimal improvement.

But take Pierre France's scores:
37
24
21
17
14
9
9
7
28
12

X = 153
Y = 125.3
grade = 139.15

But if you take away Pierre's last three quizzes you get
X = 97
And no reason to figure out Y since Pierre only took 7 quizzes. His grade was 97.

So Pierre was able to improve 42 points while Johnny only could improve 2 points, despite scoring one of his best quiz results.

[Craig P]

If the U.S. example is being done with actual numbers, then the Mexico result actually isn't as much better than the game it replaced as people thought. On the other hand, there are a couple of big numbers near the end of the list that might give the U.S. a nice bump if they should age in the next couple of rankings (provided the U.S. gets some comparable results to replace them to avoid losing significantly in their average).

[romero09]

YAY ! costa rica is back in the top 20

[Ceres]

This is what makes these rankings so bamboozling....the USA beats the 5th best team and gains 0 points, while European teams get mediocre results and gain tons of points:

Denmark +25 points (HW vs. Georgia, AD at Turkey)

Let's face it, if everyone else is getting 8-10 points for wins over medoicre opponents, should the US' home win over Mexico gain us at least a few points (even if it is replacing another pretty good result)?

Well, Denmark did beat Georgia 6-1... and then I bet Denmark also got a few points from trashing England 4-1 in a friendly ;)..
.