Question for people more in tune with the FIFA rankings than I am: Do the North American teams suffer in the FIFA rankings by not playing Gold Cup qualifiers? If so, how much? I'm imagining a 24-team qualifying tournament, with 6 groups of 4, top 2 from each group make it to the Gold Cup. Going purely on rankings, that would create groups of: Group A: USA, Canada, Guatemala, Bermuda Group B: Mexico, El Salvador, Antigua and Barbuda, Puerto Rico Group C: Costa Rica, Jamaica, Guyana, Nicaragua Group D: Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis Group E: Panama, Haiti, Suriname, Belize Group F: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Grenada, St. Lucia If this was a home-and-away format, would the points earned from this be greater than or less than the points teams typically earn from friendlies?
Using the current ratings, the US or Mexico would earn the following points from those groups, with friendlies against UEFA or CONMEBOL competition for comparison: Code: Rank Result Importance Confed Total Canada 111 3 2.5 0.88 504 Guatemala 112 3 2.5 0.88 587.4 Bermuda 153 3 2.5 0.88 330 El Salvador 89 3 2.5 0.88 739.2 Antigua 112 3 2.5 0.88 587.4 Puerto Rico 159 3 2.5 0.88 330 Friendly 1 3 1 0.94 564 Friendly 10 3 1 0.94 538.62 Friendly 25 3 1 0.94 496.32 Friendly 50 3 1 0.94 425.82 Friendly 75 3 1 0.94 355.32 Friendly 100 3 1 0.94 284.82 Friendly 125 3 1 0.94 214.32 Friendly 150 3 1 0.94 143.82 The average for the US group is 503.8, the average for the Mexico group is 552.2, the overall average is 528. So the US and Mexico could earn more points by playing friendlies, but only if their opponents averaged a ranking of 13.77 AND they were able to get the same results in those friendlies as they got in the qualifying group. Since that is not realistic, they would be better off playing the qualifiers where they would likely take maximum or near maximum points. <edit> Forgot about Canada. Because of the opportunity to play the US (and potentially earn 1240.8 points for a win), their group average is 719.4, significantly more than they could earn in any friendly.
Forgetting about the fact that the North American countries don't have to qualify for the Gold Cup, the USA hosts and hosts never have to qualify. If the USA had to qualify, they could get more FIFA Ranking points from the qualifiers but fewer points from the Gold Cup.
Here are the Top 10 in CONCACAF in the November 2013 FIFA Rankings: 14. USA 20. Mexico 31. Costa Rica 37. Panama 41. Honduras 47. Cuba 73. Haiti 79. Trinidad and Tobago 81. Jamaica 88. Dominican Republic Cuba was up 27 spots. Six countries were down at least 10 spots, namely Dominican Republic, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, St. Lucia, and Bermuda.
Cuba's rise just shows how screwed up the FIFA rankings are. They rose 27 places this month, 10 places last month, and 6 places the month before. What did they do to earn those 43 ranking places? They beat Belize in July (and lost their other 3 Gold Cup games), and haven't played anyone since. But 1 "good" result plus old bad results (lack of results, really; they played no games from November 2008 to October 2010) rolling off has vaulted them into the top 50. In other news, Canada has now dropped 8 consecutive months, falling from 68 (8th in CONCACAF) to 114th (13th in CONCACAF). Unlike Cuba, they have "earned" their spot from results on the field.
December 2013: Cuba more than lost those 43 ranking places. They fell 53 spots to 100th and lost 47.9% of their points. Canada ended their streak of moving down by moving up 2 spots to 112th. Dominican Republic and Antigua and Barbuda also went way down. Dominican Republic lost 26.6% of their points and fell 27 spots to 115th. Antigua and Barbuda lost 45.2% of their points and fell 36 spots to 145th. Here are the Top 10 in CONCACAF: 14. USA (even) 21. Mexico (down 1) 31. Costa Rica (even) 38. Panama (down 1) 42. Honduras (down 1) 78. Trinidad and Tobago (up 1) 79. Haiti (down 6) 80. Jamaica (up 1) 90. El Salvador (up 1) 100. Cuba (down 53)
The DR MNT only played 2 games this year, they beat Haiti (that sent their B-team) 3-1 and lost to Costa Rica 0-4 Soccer is a mess in this country and Blatter does not care at all
There weren't many changes in the January 2014 FIFA Rankings. The Top 10 in CONCACAF remained in the same order.
Here are the Top 10 in CONCACAF in the February 2014 FIFA Rankings and their change in ranking among all countries: 13. USA (up 1) 21. Mexico (even) 32. Panama (up 4) 35. Costa Rica (down 3) 40. Honduras (up 3) 77. Trinidad and Tobago (up 1) 78. El Salvador (up 10) 79. Haiti (even) 80. Jamaica (up 1) 98. Cuba (up 2)
Costa Rica has lots of talent (relative to the region) but seem to just stink it up from time to time. Should be ranked higher if you ask me. But maybe I'm basing that too much on talent.
Here are the Top 10 in CONCACAF in the March 2014 FIFA Rankings and their change in ranking among all countries: 14. USA (down 1) 20. Mexico (up 1) 29. Panama (up 3 to their best ever ranking according to http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/news/newsid=2295968/index.html) 34. Costa Rica (up 1) 36. Honduras (up 4) 76. Trinidad and Tobago (up 1) 78. El Salvador (even) 79. Haiti (even) 80. Jamaica (even) 93. Cuba (up 5) It was a good month for CONCACAF. St. Kitts and Nevis was the only CONCACAF country to go down by more than 1 place. 13 CONCACAF countries went up by more than 1 place.
Here are the Top 10 in CONCACAF in the April 2014 FIFA Rankings and their change in ranking among all countries: 13. USA (up 1) 19. Mexico (up 1) 32. Honduras (up 4) 34. Costa Rica (even) 35. Panama (down 6) 69. El Salvador (up 9) 76. Trinidad and Tobago (even) 79. Haiti (even) 82. Jamaica (down 2) 90. Cuba (up 3)
Here are the Top 10 in CONCACAF in the May 2014 FIFA Rankings and their change in ranking among all countries: 14. USA (down 1) 19. Mexico (even) 30. Honduras (up 2 to be in the Top 30 for the first time since they were 30th in July 2002) 34. Costa Rica (even) 35. Panama (even) 69. El Salvador (even) 74. Trinidad and Tobago (up 2) 77. Haiti (up 2) 81. Jamaica (up 1) 90. Cuba (even) 8 countries in CONCACAF moved up, 10 countries moved down, and 17 countries remained the same.
Canada hasn't been in CONCACAF's top 10 in almost a year. The goal that they scored against Bulgaria today was their first since a March 22, 2013 friendly against Japan. Their squad today had 2 USL players, 3 players (at least) still in academies, and a kid who plays for UConn. They aren't exactly doing well right now.
Here are the Top 10 in CONCACAF in the June 2014 FIFA Rankings and their change in ranking among all countries: 13. USA (up 1) 20. Mexico (down 1) 28. Costa Rica (up 6) 31. Panama (up 4) 33. Honduras (down 3) 68. El Salvador (up 1) 71. Trinidad and Tobago (up 3) 73. Haiti (up 4) 81. Jamaica (even) 95. Cuba (down 5) Aruba is up 35 spots to 120th and 12th in CONCACAF. Montserrat is up 22 spots to 166th and 24th in CONCACAF. That's the best rank ever for those countries.
I like the ELO ratings so I'll post those (as of June 25th): 10. Mexico 13. U.S. 18. Costa Rica 37. Panama 60. Honduras 3 teams in the top 18 is impressive.
I've been running the numbers for the updated confederation multipliers, and it doesn't look good for CONCACAF teams. The multipliers are based on the winning percentage of each confederation in the last 3 world cups (excluding games between teams from the same confederation). These percentages are then averaged and normalized with the best performing confederation always having a multiplier of 1 and multipliers never being allowed to be below 0.85. While CONCACAF is having a very good cup (50% winning percentage), the even better 2002 world cup (55% winning percentage) is being removed from the calculations. In addition, CONMEBOL is having a spectacular cup winning at a 78% clip, which pushes everyone else down during the normalization process. Right now (and likely at the end of the cup), the ratings of CONCACAF, AFC, CAF and OFC are all below 0.85 and thus will end up as 0.85. UEFA is also likely to drop a couple of percentage points, depending on how the knock-out rounds go. Here is my spreadsheet with the full numbers, please let me know if you see any errors.
Obviously the rankings are going to change quite drastically during Gold Cup Qualification and we could change the qualifying format, but this is what the World Cup Qualifying seeding would like as of today based off the 2014 format. Byes to the Third Round 1. USA 2. Mexico 3. Costa Rica 4. Panama 5. Honduras (these 5 seem to almost be locks) 6. El Salvador. Seeded teams in the second round 7. Trinidad 8. Haiti 9. Jamaica 10. Cuba 11. Canada 12. Aruba (who's bound to plummet soon, Guatemala is behind them) Canada is in danger of falling below that 12 spot with no competitive matches to boost their ranking. They could have a tough time just getting to round 3.
Nice analysis, but seems like a weighted average of the previous World Cups should be used with the most recent cup getting the highest ranking. Besides that, its is interesting that CONMEBOL overtakes UEFA. if so, USA participation (and success) in the Copa America-Oro could have a significant impact on the USA ranking.
If Germany wins tomorrow, UEFA and CONMEBOL will be tied at 1.00; if they lose or it goes to PKs, UEFA will be at .99 with CONMEBOL at 1.00. A good Copa would certainly help the US's ranking, but the confederation multipliers will likely preclude the US from getting a seed in 2018 which is the only tangible benefit to the US for a high ranking.
Here are the Top 10 in CONCACAF in the July 2014 FIFA Rankings and their change in ranking among all countries: 15. USA (down 2) 16. Costa Rica (up 12) 18. Mexico (up 2) 33. Panama (down 2) 40. Honduras (down 7) 83. Jamaica (down 2) 84. Trinidad and Tobago (down 13) 113. Haiti (down 40) 118. Canada (down 8) 120. Cuba (down 25) Costa Rica is in the Top 16 for the first time. Their previous best was 17th for five of the nine months from May 2003 to January 2004. El Salvador, who is 11th in CONCACAF, fell 53 spots to 121st. Turks and Caicos Islands won to go from 0 FIFA Ranking points to 66 points which moves them up 26 spots to 181st.