FIFA should actually implement some kind of rule that two teams cannot be drawn at the group stage in consecutive World Cups. I also feel it should allow some flexibility for the confederation allocations. Perhaps two teams from CAF, AFC, Concacaf and Conmebol should be allowed to be drawn together.
I don't think it is a bad thing in principle to have two teams face each other in consecutive Group Stages. I mean, if the World Cup were held every year it might get boring but since it is only held every four years we will see different players and different tactics and different approaches. So I don't mind it one bit.
Uruguay, Egypt Spain, Portugal France, Denmark Argentina, Nigeria Brazil, Switzerland Germany, Sweden Belgium, England Colombia, Poland
By next year, of the six times that Nigeria has been to the WC since 1994, they will have faced Argentina now five times. You don't think that that's a bit much perhaps because you're not the one experiencing it. And it's not that we don't want to play them or are afraid of the challenge. Even Argentineans, who's had the better of it and they've all been decided by a goal, don't necessarily want this and it's all about having the chance to experience a bit of variety. Maybe Nigeria gets a chance to face another SA team besides a throwaway match vs Paraguay when we had already qualified for the knockouts. Maybe Argentina would like to face another African side or an Asian side. It's about actually experiencing different things. At this point, it almost feels like how the NFL Thanksgiving day match always has Detroit vs Dallas. They may as well just have a ball marked Argentina/Nigeria when the draws are done.
If it was conjured up and manipulated to be this way then I would have a problem with it. This was pure chance and it happened a bunch of times. It is one of those things that I can't complain about even if I was a fan because a random draw is a random draw.
Look at the alternative. At one point there were just two options left. Argentina or getting a group: Germany, Sweden, Mexico, Nigeria. And no one would have any doubt whether or not there is a group of death The moment I saw that I was like: Please let us draw Argentina!
Exactly, even Panama are better than Italy. Italy and Holland they are where they belong watching the world cup on TV.
It's not a random draw, there are stipulations for confederation sides per group. They could just make one more to address this problem.
Nigeria missed two African Cup of Nations in a row, which means around 16 african teams were better in the qualifiers than they have been. that is the major reason for their bad rankings.
I don't see any reason as to why they should change it other than people just not wanting to see the same teams face each other. Which I do not believe is a valid reason.
Honestly I don't mind teams facing each other time after time. On the right conditions it could even create new international rivalries.
We have to at least tie Argentina this time around. I think we have a strong chance at getting a result against them this time around, although that friendly victory wont help matters as there won't be as much if any element of surprise. I'm hoping it will be a dead rubber match by the time we meet like in 2014.
LOL bro, you gotta have faith in your team! According to THIS, you might have everything you need already.
What bothers me is that it seems that the rankings give too much weight to events from two years ago. The entire roster is completely different now. At some point, current results should have at least double the weight, if not more than results from two years ago in a rolling average that still encompasses the entire cycle but allows a more decent representation of current form. Granted, I guess the point is to represent the whole cycle, but it gives a bad picture of the teams as they are. Nigeria is not the 50th team in the world at the moment. As I said before, I'd rather be underrated than rated going into this WC, so we'll see how it works out and I still rate the team's chances against this group, but I almost wonder if anyone has even paid attention to what is happening in CAF right now... if they had then they would know that, even among African teams, the rankings are incredibly misleading. Those of us who have been watching know this. On current form either Nigeria or Senegal are the best in Africa followed closely by Egypt.
Results are weighted as below. "The average number of points gained from matches older than 12 months Four years, covering one World Cup cycle, are taken into account. Matches older than 12 months within this four-year period depreciate blockwise on a yearly basis: Match average from past 12 months: 100% Match average from previous year: 50% Match average from year 3: 30% Match average from year 4: 20% Matches older than 4 years: 0% (deleted)"
My updated rankings including the November matches using my formula. Again I understand no formula is perfect, and there are things with this ranking I disagree with but I think these rankings are far more accurate than FIFA and even better than Elo. 1. Germany 2. Brazil 3. France 4. Spain 5. Argentina 6. Portugal 7. Italy 8. Peru 9. Belgium 10. Croatia 11. Holland 12. Colombia 13. Mexico 14. England 15. Iceland 16. Poland 17. Sweden 18. Chile 19. Wales 20. Senegal 21. Denmark 22. Switzerland 23. Nigeria 24. Uruguay 25. Egypt 26. Cameroon 27. Morocco 28. Burkina Faso 29. Venezuela 30. South Africa 31. Ireland Rep. 32. Serbia 33. USA 34. Tunisia 35. Ghana 36. Iran 37. Paraguay 38. Slovakia 39. Bosnia & H 40. Congo Rep 41. Russia 42. Greece 43. Costa Rica 44. Japan 45. Ecuador 46. Ukraine 47. Turkey 48. N. Ireland 49. Romania 50. Algeria Rest of World cup qualifiers 53. South Korea 55. Australia 57. Panama 75. Saudi Arabia
Well, the FIFA rankings do take in-to account how long ago a match was. And the flip-side of your argument is: NTs don't play a lot of competitive matches in a year. So unless you want the ranking of a NT to come down to 6 games you have to give matches from last year and the year before that a decent amount of weight. Especially since some of those 6 matches might not be a useful measuring stick (e.g. Italy v Gibraltar will provide no information about how good Italy is).
Your ranking list, is even worse than both FIFA's and ELO's. Among those who appear above our team, in your list : . 3. France (last time they defeated us was in 1994, since then, only we have won) 4. Spain (last time we faced them was in 2014 WC, we won) 5. Argentina (last cycle, we lost 3 times against them, but also defeated them twice, both in finals) 6. Portugal (their last win was in 1972; last time we faced them was at the Confed Cup, we won) 7. Italy (last time they defeated us, was in the 1966 WC) 8. Peru (last 3 times we faced them, we won all 3 of them (in the last 10 years, we are 10 wins against only 1 defeat) . 10. Croatia (we defeated them at the China cup, this year) . 12. Colombia (last 3 times we faced them, we've had 2 draws + 1 win) 13. Mexico ( 7 - 0, ) 14. England (last time they won, was in 1953; last 2 were in1998 and 2013, we won both) 15. Iceland (we played this year at the China cup, we won) .
Rankings can provide a useful, rough, synopsis on how teams have done in terms of results (not tournament achievements necessarily) in a World Cup cycle, but they don't mean more. At the end of the day, the samples are too small and the lack of sufficient games between the different confederations make the comparisons apples and oranges. Besides all that, there are various intangibles and other factors that hugely affect how teams do in the World Cup compared to how they do heading to it. Those include the luck of the draw, how the ball bounces, whether a side finds itself suddenly handicapped by injuries, loss of form, and other extraneous issues. The idea that the World Cup results are the actual barometer on who are the strongest sides in the world is itself questionable. There are teams whose results, when viewed in a league type format (which is what rankings try to simulate) are simply better or worse than their results in a tournament format. That itself has something to do with the intangible elements including psychological factors which can play a crucial role in deciding a game like football in a tournament involving few games, where often the result is determined by 1-2 goals on either side from mistakes or flashes of brilliance that require a confident mindset besides just pure talent).
LOL its worse than both FIFA and Elo simply because Chile is ranked worst in my rankings, great logic mate !!!!! Even the much respected Elo has Chile at #15 while mine is only 3 off at #18. So Elo is closer to my ranking in regards to Chile than FIFA. Chile's recent record has been horrendous, that's why you and your team will be watching the WorldCup at home, seeing the likes of Peru in your place. Look at your horrible recent record Last 5 matches, only one win vs Ecuador which is the second worst ranked South American side in my rankings. losses to Brazil, almighty Bolivia, Germany, and Paraguay AT HOME. Go back even more and you lost against Romania which has been a horrible team of late and drew with a very average Russia side as well. You mention a victory over Croatia, but it was actually a draw without penalty kicks and it was against a Croatia side with not even 1 player from their normal squad. Any way you slice it Chile' recent record has been horrible which is why they aren't going to the WC. My rankings are more reflective of RECENT form than both Elo and FIFA. Elo rankings is actually laughable the more I look at it. South Korea ranked higher than any African side. That is absolutely pathetic, I mean based on what ? A Morocco B team just hammered them a couple of months ago, and they haven't even been doing that well in Asian qualifying. JOKE.
If you want to use a formula to rank teams, your methodology should be accepted. The results aren't the criteria that matter in such a context. Otherwise, to get results that match conventional wisdom, it would be better just to go with conventional wisdom! As for South Korea, and their loss to Morocco, they did draw Serbia and beat Colombia recently in other friendlies. So we shouldn't just cherry pick either if we want to use a friendly to validate any point. You are on more solid footing mentioning their Asian qualifying campaign and I agree that South Korea's form the past 2 years doesn't earn them the rankings they get from ELO. I even agree that ELO appears particularly uninformative when it comes to CAF teams. But their methodology is still superior to any alternative ranking I have seen. In this regard, while recent form is important, the same way past form can change to something else in recent form, the recent form can also change to something else in future form. In other words, at the end of the day, its guess work and not much more when you want to determine how much weight to give to more recent results as opposed to slightly more dated ones. Incidentally, and just as an aside, there are many sides you have ranked above Iran that I certainly wouldn't. And if ELO's ranking of CAF sides leaves a lot to be desired and underrates them significantly, your rankings of them appear a bit inflated to me.
I think there are plenty of teams that are inflated in all the rankings. Yes some of the CAF teams appear inflated in my rankings but I can at least back up Burkina Faso with the fact that they recently finished #3 at the last ACN, beating Ghana, Tunisia, drawing against Cameroon and Egypt, tying Senegal twice in recent WCQ. They also just thrashed Cape Verde Islands (a team who recently beat Portugal) 4-0. What exactly is Elo reason for ranking S. Korea so high ? Because I can find none. So Burkina Faso's high ranking is far more justifiable than Elos ranking of Korea so high. Their last 2 matchdays have a victory over Colombia and draw against Serbia. That's good, but beyond that you have another 2 friendly losses against Russia and Morocco. Their last WCQ matches draws against Iran and Uzbekistan, loss against Qatar, draw against Iraq, victory against Syria, Loss against China. That frankly is a horrible record, and for Elo to somehow rank them ahead of every African side based on such a piss poor record, I have to say there is some deep seeded flaw in Elo rankings.
Fixed your post and 3 quick points: 1- We are all affected by our biases in how we view things. For you, S.Korea losing to some lesser Asian teams shows their poor quality, while for some of the African sides you rate highly, it is the reverse: losing to some lesser known African sides shows the quality of the latter and is not a poor reflection on the former. I agree S.Korea are overrated by ELO but your ranking of some of these African teams doesn't make sense to me either. 2- We shouldn't cherry pick results (worse yet, friendly results) to boost a point. The overall record is what matters and is looked at by objective ranking systems. I mention that with regard to some games you mention for some of these African sides. Many of them have very poor results in other friendlies and in other matches they have played. 3- I am still scratching my head on how you have gone from one extreme regarding CAF to another one!