Ok, but why? Are you going by the results in the last major tournament? Or in the last two years overall? If so, you're SOL.
I think you'd be surprised. Even if Poland had won both their November friendlies (against Uruguay and Mexico, hardly "poor" teams) their ranking score would have fallen (from 1323 to 1318). There is more here (and I don't have access to exactly what Poland's rankings would have been if they had not played these matches), but that's the sort of thing we see. Sure, nothing is proved here, but federations ARE doing this - it's a real thing. It also isn't hard to see why you might want to. That seems to be an argument against including friendlies in the ranks - not whether Poland's schedule has affected their rankings relative to other countries. J
Do you have any doubts Spain are a stronger team than Poland? Based on comparative strengths Spain belongs in pot 1. Ask anyone who they'd rather avoid to draw.
OK, see Spain's and Poland's odds below. Do you believe Poland are one of the favourites to go all the way in Russia? Same question for you: "Prove that Poland deserve to be in Pot 1 instead of Spain.
Now this is actually good. I am in no mood to research the truthfulness of the arguments right now, but your statements are impressive. I will get back to you when I actually have the time to do the calculations having to do with the Poland/Uruguay/Mexico teams. Still they do not prove that not participating in friendlies "games" the system. Coaches and FA's can have many reasons whether to play particular friendlies or not. Sometimes political, squad related, or tactical, and yes, perhaps ranking based. Prior 1982 WC Poland did not play any friendlies because most FA's refused to do so because of the then 'martial law". This was one one of the factors, at least according to the Poland coach, why he was able to surprise the opponents.
Ok? Explain how do the odds of winning the WC prove that Spain deserves to be in Pot 1 over Poland? Just a gentle reminder, Brazil was a 3-1 favorite to win in 2014. To help you out a bit, I am looking more for recent match results, or individual player for player comparison.
@Smoga ... even for someone sleeping in Poland pyjama's that's a bit much. If you feel Poland have a stronger team go ahead and compare them with Spain. You were asked to provide proof and so far you've failed to deliver.
Pretty much. The whole point seems to be having the ability to give guys like Azpilicueta chances to run up through the middle if the defenders overplay during the buildup. They've done a good job with it in the past. Haven't been able to watch as much EPL this season though but from what I've read about their struggles this year, it hasn't been as effective as before so they may not be running it all the time anymore...
Even with the tying Uruguay and losing to Mexico with all 3 teams playing experimental sides, Poland is still in Pot 1 according to FIFA rankings. Blame the ranking methodology, thats fine, but don't talk about trying to "game" the system.
@Smoga ... if you hadn't brought up that Spanish and English media were critical of Poland I wouldn't have glanced at Poland's matches and noticed that it does look quite suspicious. The rankings shouldn't be vulnerable to abuse but they are (sure that's up to FIFA to fix). Hard to tell which teams Poland would have played and what the results would have been if Poland had scheduled friendlies during the dates available to them in the highest yielding timeframe before the October rankings were released. Hey-ho, it's a fait accompli now. Let's see who gets Spain.
This is easy. Spain has Iniesta, Silva, Isco, Koke, Thiago, Asensio, Busquets, Pique, Ramos, Niguez, Morata, etc. Poland has like two players on this level.
Chile Seems to me that a 3-4-3 means dispensing with the fullbacks. This is why Sampaoli's formation makes sense for Argentina, as there are no Argentina fullbacks of any worth at present.
Or maybe Poland plays as a team at a level that's better than the sum of their parts. Rankings should be based on actual results, not betting odds or what club team the players get paid by.
Well yeah, Victor Moses played at wingback for most of last season. It was what sparked his resurgence in the team. As I've said, they've gone away from that a bit from what I hear.
I'll start by saying that this is true, the Polish FA can have had any number of reasons to play as few friendlies as they did. And even if they chose to because they wanted to game the ranking I have no issues with that. That is their prerogative and it doesn't mean that they are doing anything wrong or illegal, it just means that the rankings system FIFA uses is poorly constructed as it can quite easily be taken advantage of. No actually you don't get it because it means just that. Your statement is factually incorrect just as your earlier claim is. This is also incorrect (in most cases). And that is because the ranking points gained from a win in a friendly match is much lower than the points gained from a win in a competitive match and even a draw can often get you about as many points as a friendly win. And now for some math, I'll only do the last 12 months as that's all that's needed to prove the point but it looks similar for the 12 months before that too. In the last year prior to the October rankings Poland will have gained a bit more than 839 rankings points (I say "a bit more" as it differs with their opponents exact ranking at the point of the match which I haven't got the energy to research but the difference will be fairly low so it doesn't matter for the point). Those 839 points is the average from the 7 match total of 5875 (all those 7 games were WCQ games). Because that's how the rankings work, you gain points for every match played and then your yearly total is the average of all the points gained in the 12 months period (it is actually four 12 months periods counting backwards from the month of the ranking with an separate average for each period but I'm using just the last year as it is enough for the example). This means that if Poland would have gained less than 839 points form an extra friendly match then their average would have decreased and that would have meant that their ranking points total also would have decreased. And as the maximum number of points a friendly match can be worth is 600 points (if you play the #1 ranked team) then any friendly match (or matches) Poland would have added to their schedule would have meant a decrease in their points total regardless of outcome in said match (or matches). And as @JLSA said, this isn't some unknown fact. It is an issue with the rankings system that is both well known and used by teams/FAs and a frequent source of complaints towards the FIFA ranking. But I'll reiterate what I said at the start, I don't blame Poland for this, I blame FIFA.
@Thezzaruz if Poland had scheduled friendlies on dates that were available to them in the highest yielding timeframe, e.g. had lost to Germany and Portugal on the 2 dates they didn't play (or any other team for that matter), is it correct that you can deduct 158 points from their total (simply by changing the average from 8 to 10 games with 0 points for the extra 2 friendlies; Poland gained 789.59 points from 7 WCQs + 1 friendly, a draw with Slovenia in Nov.2016)? Poland would then have 1165 total points and be ranked 10th, below Spain and Chile, on the all important October rankings. In the other scenarios, where Poland don't lose both friendlies, they could also fall short of Spain's 1218 total points (with top seed status being awarded to Spain instead of Poland). They'd need to collect over 530.28 points in the 2 friendlies in order to have more total points than Spain. By simply avoiding to play those 2 games Poland (1323 total points) ended up with a massive points lead over the likes of Chile (1173), Spain (1218) and France (1226). So to grab top seed status Poland, deliberately or not, sacrificed the revenue from 2 friendlies. Poland do look suspect and there seems more to it than merely the media having a Monday moan.
Poland didn't move up a pot in the end but Italy were drawn into Spain's group in the Preliminary Draw. It didn't turn out that great for Italy. You snooze, you lose I guess. Still FIFA need to fix their rankings asap, especially when increasing the impact they have on seeding. France came close to missing out on pot 1 as well in the October rankings, like Spain did. Peru, Switzerland, etc. were chasing down top seed status but France were lucky enough to make the bubble. France had taken hits to their ranking by hosting the EUROs and already were in pot 2 during the Preliminary Draw (making qualification harder for Holland and Sweden; the latter having to face Italy in the play-offs). Pot 2 wasn't a reflection of France's (+/- Italy's) actual strength and it also wasn't the case for the top seed of the group Poland were drawn into (a top seed that ended up 4th behind Montenegro). How did the top seed of the WCQ group that Poland won manage to get that status? Also, in the group that Serbia won: Wales played 0 friendlies in the year before the Preliminary Draw and ended up in pot 1. It's a big mess. UEFA held off using FIFA's flawed rankings for the European WCQs until FIFA forced them, IIRC UEFA were the last confed to fall in line, and now it sounds like UEFA members have pressured FIFA to review their rankings. If it was indeed England, pat yourselves on the back, nice one!
AFC were the last to switch - they didn't use FIFA ranks until 2014. The evidence that UEFA were "forced" is pretty weak - they were asked and put up literally no fight at all. To call that "forced" is self-serving. J
They proposed a different system, not to use the rankings, but it was decided they had to in accordance with the FIFA World Cup regulations (which note that where teams are ranked on "performance" criteria, the FIFA World Rankings must be used). I think the Germans moaned the most back then although I can't confidently say so as it has been a while and maybe there's evidence of AFC putting up more of a fight (with regards to AFC being the last to switch they might have used the rankings in earlier rounds before 2014). This is all a bit pedantic, so fair play to them if they did. FIFA forced everybody to use their rankings in the end (unless some were eager to use the rankings?).
I am all in favor of FIFA rankings being used for a purpose, which then creates greater pressure and incentive to work out its flaws. While no ranking system will be perfect, there are a few clear problems with FIFA's rankings that need to be tackled.
From the sounds of it, the Fifa rankings are still better than what the posters in this thread could come up with. At least they are based on past results, not future projections and betting odds. Lol
Friendlies and competative matches should be worth the exact same amount of points. Its just that when looking at averages competative matches should have some sort of multiplier to make those results worth more. For example I created my own ranking system and it works as such. If you beat Brazil in a friendly you get 100 points. If you beat Brazil in a qualifier you get 100 points x 2. So its like you played and beat Brazil twice as opposed to the once of a friendly. Continental tournament x3 Worldcup x 4 These are simple fixes that would not penalize people for playing friendlies. In fact it encourages people to take friendlies more seriously as they can actually improve your ranking. However they will not hold the same weight as competative matches. Also you will not be penalized under my method for not playing competative matches (tournament hosts). Honestly its like the FIFA rankings were designed by an incompetent idiot.