Some fans have been very enthusiastic about Sweden's new coach Peter Gerhardsson. Their estimated performance rating in 2018/2019 of 1986 (tied with Japan) is very good. Australia, a team I thought a couple years ago would be a real contender, has struggled in that time, which is reflected in their performance rating of 1927 - good but trending downward, not upward. I wouldn't be surprised to see Australia do well against the US - they've matched up well against the US for the last 4 years and they are one of a handful of teams which no longer fear the Americans.
It's not that they don't want to play Rolfö but she is very injury prone. She was left out of the Algarve so she could fully recover for once. You should watch the Sweden v England friendly from earlier this year and you might like Ilestedt for more than her looks She is only 4th choice for Sweden though behind Fischer, Sembrant and Eriksson
Rolfo had low playing time for the 8 game WC qualifiers & then only 28 min. for friendlies in 2018 Sweden - F. Rolfö - Profile with news, career statistics and history - Women Soccerway so could be due to injuries but then shes seems to have a for filling career at Bayern Munich not sure how good Ilested is a player is;at Turbine Potsdam she has to share the starter spot with the Swiss girl, Kiwic, who's got to be one of the most atrocious bad defenders this side of Millie Bright!
Yes, she had low playing time but she was in the line-up every time she was available for WC qualifiers.
one thing amazes me is the oddity that Scotland is only ranked #20? They beat #18 Switzerland to win the 8 game WC group qualifier series. They beat #17 Denmark last month in the Algarve Cup & a very decisive, 4-1, win over #22 Iceland/ As well as two close , 0-1 losses vs the US & Canada Their lineup is on par with #3 England's if you check their players accomplishments in the WPS; when no one's injured, they can boast 3 starters(Little, Evans, Mitchell) on the top of the table Arsenal team(England currently only got 2 starters) they can have as many of 4 starters on #2 Man City(Weir, Elmslie, Arnott, Beatie) plus Cuthbert at Chelsea who recently took the starting spot of the more heralded, R Bachmann. Other notables include, Corsie, who's gotten strong creds at Seattle & Melbourne, and Ross, who one year was the WPS leading scorer. So overall, a very strong lineup they ever decide to play at full strength, and should be be heading closer to top 10. So I understand how the FIFA rankings work & favors long levity but in the case of Scotland, it proves dead wrong in figuring out how strong a team is
dear blissett, don't you know the story behind whats arguably, the winningest basketball coach around? (he's won the last 3 Olympic & World Championships in a row, plus a host of NCAA titles back home) when talking about opponents at press conferences, he's got a habit of saying things like, 'yeah that #13 gave us a tough tine' or 'good defense from #10'. Well one day he got confronted by a group of angry Euro sports journalists(think of yourself feeling very comfy with this group) who demanded; why you can't mention any of these opposing player by name? his answer was; "if I had to spend time to remember & pronounce every single name of my opponents. well then, I wouldn't be winning any basketball games" and then he told them; "you don't got to bother with my name either(which is some overlong Polish sounding name), just call me coach K"
You're cherry-picking again, as well as mixing things up. In terms of results, you shouldn't include the loss to the USA, since that was already figured into the previous December rankings, and their victory over Switzerland was even further back (and also, if you're taking a long view, that home win against Switzerland was counteracted by an away loss to Switzerland as well). You also are forgetting to include the two losses to Norway and Iceland in La Manga back in January. Taken all together, the fact that they (over the course of a year) split a series with #18 and also split a series with #22 should tell you that the #20 ranking is pretty accurate. "Close losses" to two top-five teams won't override a glut of other games, especially because they're losses (and one of them was a home loss). You can't approach the top 10 until you start semi-regularly beating top 10 sides. As for the lineup issues, you're ignoring positional issues as well as ignoring the issue of depth. England has Scotland well-beat in both cases. And while you mention a bunch of strong Scottish players, you completely fail to actually directly compare them to strong English players, so you have no point of comparison. Also, please get your leagues right. WPS was the American league from 2009-2011. The current English league is the WSL.
if you misunderstood my previous post, I don't think FIFA rankings are correct cuz it can't read the lineups that NT's are using)or it can't tell that important players are missing due to temporary injuries/ you mentioned earlier, Scotland's earlier year loss to Iceland. In my previous post I wrote about 9 quality players that they got. Yet they only started 3 of them vs Iceland, with 2 more coming in only the 81st minute Scotland vs. Iceland - 21 January 2019 - Women Soccerway it was the about the same vs Norway/ I kinda surprised that FIFA got it wrong with the Swiss higher ranked over them It still was a tourney that took an year which making it into the WC was just not anything, it was the ONLY thing that mattered! same thing could be said with France's loss to Germany(which cost them 3rd ranking) FIFA ranking system couldn't understand that they were missing their famed Le Sommer/Majri duo for that game
I didn't misunderstand anything. Your frame of reference is wrong. You can play the lineup what-if game all you want, but the reality is that lineups change all the time. A team is not its hypothetical best lineup all the time; its strength should reflect its stumbles as well as its peaks - strong teams can miss their best players and still do well. You can't discount bad results just because someone is injured (or because the coach is experimenting). If you don't have the depth (or leadership), you don't have the depth (or leadership). Besides, talking about "strong" players is entirely subjective. You'll never have an objective system that accounts for the constant roster shifting - and nor should you. Opinions will mislead far more often than the raw numbers do.
Absolutely correct. Games data, input to legitimate statistical rating systems (of which the FIFA system is one), will outperform humans most of the time. I'm still not sure whether the occasional human who outperforms the rating systems is really good or just at the lucky end of the bell curve.
Hehheh if you want to! In a friendly at a neutral location, Brazil (1944) would have an expected result over Scotland (1812) of around 0.681. The 0-1 loss is an actual result of 0.150, so the points shift from this match is 15(0.150-0.681) or essentially 8pts lost for Brazil, and the same amount won for Scotland. So this result alone (assuming everyone else was static) would have bumped Brazil down one rank (to 11th) and bumped Scotland up one rank (to 19th). At this rate, 8pts/game, Scotland would need six or seven similar results to climb into the top 15 - though fewer than that if they beat better teams than Brazil or had those victories in official competitions (i.e. not friendlies). Also, Scotland would need to NOT get results like the 1-1 draw against Chile three days ago, since Scotland lost a few points from that game. Remember that you can't cherry-pick!
As I was noticing in the thread dedicated to Brazilian NT on these board, Brazil has now a record of 9 losses in the last 9 games played (they don't have a win or a draw since their win vs Japan at Tournament of Nations last year, in August 2018). I wonder if a top-10 team ever had such a bad spell before...
yeah, noticed that too, the marquee names of Brazil & Marta, are conveniently still in the 'elite' top 10 despite loosing all their games since last August. Co-incidental? or stay there to satisfy the WC ticket sellers from which FIFA takes a hefty commission. lol btw...........you mention a Brazilian thread; any links? a I noticed some of these woso thread gems are missing from the public, like the Nadeshiko thread not under the Japan heading Japan | BigSoccer Forum perhaps in hiding from the heavy handed mods who have banned so many of our former regulars like WWC, Blue/White, Debzy, Gromit ect
Brazilian thread has been recently opened by our very active member @sbahnhof, and it's not really hard to find, it's here, under Women's International sub-forum. Lol, Nadeshiko Japan's thread doesn't have any need to hide itself, so thank you for linking to it once more! Actually, I guess you're mixing up things a little: as far as I know, WWC_Movement and Blue/White were indeed banned, but Debzy and Gromit stopped posting by their own will (debzy even talked about that for long, before leaving).
Hard to say for sure if it's a record - it probably is - but you can definitely see the toll it's taken on Brazil in the fact that in June 2018 they were 7th with a rating of 1985 and have been constantly falling since, to 10th with 1944 at the previous release and surely lower now. Dropping over 40 (now nearly 60) points in under a year is quite the fall from grace. But to be fair to Brazil, look at the list of nations they played against between that last ToN win and the release of the March 2019 ranking: USA (1) in USA Canada (5) in Canada England (3) in England France (4) in France England (4) in USA Japan (8) in USA USA (1) in USA Until their recent losses to Spain and Scotland, they only played teams higher than them in the rankings, and never at home. That's why that string of 7 losses wasn't enough to bump them out of the top 10 for the March ranking. (They'll of course drop out of the top 10 now that they've lost to Spain and Scotland though, even if you expected Spain to win because the match was in Spain.) You can't say they weren't challenging themselves. I think this is far and away the toughest schedule any nation in the world has taken on in that time frame.
The rating difference was even less looking at performance ratings over the last year-plus. Since Jan 2018, Brazil's performance rating before Scotland game was roughly 1908 (below their official rating of 1944, which normally lags behind changes in performance ratings); Scotland's performance rating in same time was about 1848. On a neutral field, the rating differential of about 60 points translates to an expected win probability of roughly 58.5%, hardly a big edge at all
In the 11 matches Brazil has played since the South American qualifying tournament for the World Cup, the average rating of their opponent, adjusted for homefield, has been 2055! That's higher than England and France's current rating! Their performance rating during this time (in which they've won once and lost 10 times) is roughly 1802 to 1820, which puts them roughly in the range of teams like Switzerland (1828), New Zealand (1815), Scotland (1812), Belgium (1812), Iceland (1806), and Austria (1798) Their rating benefits from the FIFA system of using the goals scored in calculating ratings, where it matters to only lose by one goal rather 2,3,4 goals or more. If we estimated their performance rating in the classical Elo fashion - full point for a win, zero points for a loss, 1/2 point for draw - Brazil's performance rating in this stretch would be around a shocking 1655, a rating well below Mexico/Colombia/Ukraine/Russia and in the range of teams like Ireland, Portugal, Poland, and the Czech Republic
Here's a rough update of the performance ratings for most of the top-ranked teams in the World Cup with current official ratings in parentheses (for the time period from Jan 1, 2018 to last week's friendlies): 1. Germany 2092 (official rating 2072) 2. France 2086 (2043) 3. USA 2084 (2101) 4. England 2009 (2049) 5. Spain (!!!) 1995 (1913) 6. Japan 1989 (1991) 7. Canada 1981 (2006) 8. Sweden 1973 (1962) 9. Netherlands 1952 (1967) 10. Norway 1934 (1915) 11. Australia 1927 (2003) 12. Brazil 1897 (1944) 13. South Korea 1881 (1883) 14. Italy 1870 (1868) 15. Scotland 1862 (1812) 16. China 1850* (1866) * results thru March only Here's the thing I've been saying about Germany - since Steffi Jones stepped down a year ago as coach (after failing to win a game in the She Believes tournament), their performance rating is 2201 (!), a full 100 points ahead of the US official rating and in the stratospheric territory that only the US and Germany in their most dominant years reached. How bad was Steffi Jones? Germany's performance rating during her tenure was about 1960.
Alright, since the WWC group stage is over, I thought it might be fun to revisit the rankings. I'm only gonna do some back-of-the-envelope calculations, especially since I'm gonna ignore the friendlies that have been played between the last release and the WWC itself. (Since WWC games count for 4x what friendlies count, I think any movement from the friendlies will get lost in the shifts from the WWC itself.) Group A start: FRA-2043**, NOR-1915, KOR-1883, NGA-1599 FRA 4-0 KOR shipped about 9pts NOR 3-0 NGA shipped about 6pts NGA 2-0 KOR shipped a whopping 45pts!!! (upsets in the WWC will do that) FRA 2-1 NOR shipped about 3pts FRA 1-0 NGA shipped about 6pts to NGA (FRA didn't win by enough) NOR 2-1 KOR shipped about 13pts Group A end: FRA-2049**, NOR-1931, KOR-1816, NGA-1644 Group B start: GER-2072, ESP-1913, CHN-1866, RSA-1485 GER 1-0 CHN / 5pts ESP 3-1 RSA / 1pt to RSA GER 1-0 ESP / 8pts CHN 1-0 RSA / 3pts to RSA GER 4-0 RSA / 0pts ESP 0-0 CHN / 2pts to CHN, 6pts from ESP (draws aren't balanced) Group B end: GER-2085, ESP-1898, CHN-1860, RSA-1489 Group C start: AUS-2003, BRA-1944, ITA-1868, JAM-1449 ITA 2-1 AUS / 32pts (!) BRA 3-0 JAM / 1pt AUS 3-2 BRA / 17pts ITA 5-0 JAM / 3pts AUS 4-1 JAM / 0pts BRA 1-0 ITA / 18pts Group C end: AUS-1988, BRA-1946, ITA-1885, JAM-1445 Group D start: ENG-2049, JPN-1991, SCO-1812, ARG-1626 ENG 2-1 SCO / 3pts JPN 0-0 ARG / 22pts to ARG, 25pts from JPN (!) JPN 2-1 SCO / 8pts ENG 1-0 ARG / 3pts to ARG ENG 2-0 JPN / 19pts SCO 3-3 ARG / 13pts to ARG, 11pts from SCO Group D end: ENG-2068, JPN-1955, SCO-1790, ARG-1664 Group E start: CAN-2006, NED-1967, NZL-1815, CMR-1499 CAN 1-0 CMR / 6pts to CMR NED 1-0 NZL / 9pts NED 3-1 CMR / 2pts to CMR CAN 2-0 NZL / 10pts NED 2-1 CAN / 23pts (!) CMR 2-1 NZL / 41pts (!!!) Group E end: NED-1997, CAN-1987, NZL-1755, CMR-1548 Group F start: USA-2101, SWE-1962, THA-1658, CHI-1589 SWE 2-0 CHI / 1pt USA 13-0 THA / 4pts SWE 5-1 THA / 6pts USA 3-0 CHI / 1pt USA 2-0 SWE / 14pts CHI 2-0 THA / 30pts (!!) Group F start: USA-2120, SWE-1955, THA-1618, CHI-1617 (how close is that?? Just think if CHI got that third goal...) Basically, at the top of the rankings, ENG and FRA have swapped positions (though FRA's home field advantage will still serve them well this tournament), NED have jumped up and CAN dropped down. In the middle tier, NOR and ITA jumped up while KOR, ESP, and SCO fell. Further down, we see big gains from CHI, ARG, CMR, and NGA
Do the ratings matter? The ratings (for the women's teams at least) usually give us a very good idea what the field will look like in the quarterfinals of the World Cup and this year is no exception. 6 of the top 9 highest-rated teams in the tournament made the quarterfinals - out of a maximum possible 7 (because of high-ranked teams playing each other in the Round of 16, for instance #7 Japan playing #8 Netherlands and #5 Canada playing #9 Sweden) 7 of the quarterfinalists came out of the top 11 - and that was the maximum number which could come from that group. And the lowest-rated quarterfinalist, Italy, was the highest-rated team possible to be the "number 8" team once the knockout bracket was set. * The performance ratings gave an even better idea of the quarter-final field. 7 of the quarterfinalists came from the 10 highest-rated teams by performance ratings - and that was the maximum number of teams possible from those 10 because of playing each other (#3 USA playing #6 Spain, #5 Japan playing #9 Netherlands, #7 Canada playing #8 Sweden - and the upsets were barely upsets at all. Japan's performance rating was only 20 points higher than Netherlands while Canada's performance rating was 4 more than Sweden's) Norway's performance rating was actually a tad higher than Australia's and the last, the lowest-performance-rated quarter-finalist, Italy, was the highest-rated team possible to be the "last" quarter-finalist once the knockout stage was set. Italy had the 14th-highest performance rating in the World Cup but #13 South Korea failed to get out of the group stage and the other higher-rated teams which didn't make it lost to teams in the top 10 in performance ratings. 1. Germany (performance rating 2090 since 1/1/2018 and heading into the World Cup) -1/4 final 2. France (2085) -1/4 final 3. USA (2075) -1/4 final 4. England 1993 -1/4 final 5. Japan 1989 - eliminated/lost to #9 Netherlands (only 20 rating pt difference) 6. Spain 1983 - eliminated/lost to #3 USA 7. Canada 1980 - eliminated/lost to #8 Sweden (only 4 pt difference) 8. Sweden 1976 -1/4 final 9. Netherlands 1969 -1/4 final 10 Norway 1934 -1/4 final 11. Australia 1916 - eliminated/lost to #10 Norway 12. Brazil 1897 - eliminated /lost to #2 France 13. South Korea 1879 - eliminated in group stage 14. Italy 1877 -1/4 final 15. Scotland 1858 - eliminated in group stage 16. China 1852 - eliminated/lost to #14 Italy
Do the ratings matter? I'm not a mathematician but I tried measuring how well the ratings (and alternatively the performance ratings) predicted the results in the World Cup up through the Round of 16. I'll need to check some of my work again, but I wanted to post this in case I didn't have time to get around to it for a while. In calculating the ratings, FIFA doesn't just use win/loss/tie (as the original Elo ratings for chess do) but uses a table which gives a decimal score for each official match result. The number of goals - and the goal differential - in each match matters. Each match is worth one point and the winner and loser divvy up the point depending on the score. For example, a team which wins 1-0 gets an "official" (for rating purposes) game result - or what I'll call a decimal result - of (.85) while the team which loses gets (.15). As another example, in a 2-0 game, the winner gets (.92) and the loser (.08) When I talk about expected win percentages or probabilities, this could also (I believe) be thought of as the predicted "official" game result, the predicted score of the game translated into the decimals on the table. So if a team is rated 300 points higher than another, according to the Elo scale that means its expected win probability is 85% or (.849). That could also be interpreted as the expected game score translated into decimal numbers on the rating table. Since a 1-0 score translates to a decimal score of (.85) in calculating the ratings, we could say when one team is rated 300 points higher than another the average expected score of the game is 1-0 (in favor of the higher rated team of course). If the favored team wins 2-0, which translates to a ratings decimal score of (.92), they've outperformed the expected score of (.85) by (.07) But in theory, if the ratings were really really accurate, then, on average, if you take all the times one team plays teams rated 300 points less, their average decimal score would be (.85), which corresponds to a 1-0 victory. And that would also be true if you took all games where one of the teams was rated 300 points higher than their opponent So what I did was take the scores and the rating difference of the games in the World Cup, used the rating differences to calculate the expected result (expected win pct OR expected decimal score) and compared it with the actual decimal score (the score of the game translated into a decimal result using the FIFA table) and looked to see how far off the results are on average. *** Results - at a glance, the results look pretty good to me. After 44 matches (36 group games plus the 8 Round of 16 matches), the average rating difference has been 267 rating points. The average expected result (or expected win percentage) for the higher rated team has been (.78) and the average actual result has been (.742), an average error, by my calculations, of 3.8% At a preliminary glance, the results are even better when I use the performance ratings from 1/1/2018 to the start of the Cup. (I used also a special performance rating for Nigeria using only non-African opponents because the ratings for African teams tends to be unreliable because African teams play outside their confederation so rarely. Nigeria's performance rating against non-African teams in this time period came to 1721, in contrast to their official rating of 1599) Using the performance ratings (and the specially calculated rating for Nigeria), the average rating difference in World Cup matches so far has been 220 points. The average expected result (or expected win percentage) for the higher rated team has been (.745). The average actual result, which doesn't change using official FIFA ratings or performance ratings, is still (.742) and the average error, by my calculation is 0.3% 0.3 % !!! When I check my work and tweak things it may get worse, but that's an encouraging number! *** I know this post gets a little detailed and technical. I'll try to present it in a little less technical way later but for now I wanted to at least post it so some can see it and in a way I can understand myself so I can work on it again later!