Ranking leagues - another idea

Discussion in 'Statistics and Analysis' started by Elninho, Apr 26, 2005.

  1. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    For some reason, I found myself looking up UEFA coefficients a couple days ago, and had some thoughts on ranking the level of play in national leagues against each other. It's pretty clear that the main difficulty is not in comparing the top teams - they play each other frequently enough that we can quite easily say how they stand against each other - but in comparing the leagues from top to bottom when we don't have many meaningful matches played between mid-table clubs. In almost every ranking system I've seen, top-heavy leagues are grossly overrated: there are teams that do fairly well in international play, but they also dominate their domestic leagues.

    So... given the UEFA coefficients, which have done a pretty decent job over the years of ranking the top teams in European leagues against each other, I thought it might be possible to adjust them using the domestic performance of the teams that play in European competition. I have two schemes:

    1) Adjust for domestic performance relative to domestic league median point total - this gives a comparison of "mid-table" from league to league

    2) Adjust for domestic performance in terms of (points earned / possible points) - this should be more of a top-to-bottom measure.

    I've got a pretty basic spreadsheet of my preliminary results. I've gone ahead and crunched the last two seasons' worth of UEFA data; using a weighted average of UEFA coefficients (or adjusted coefficients) for 03/04 and 02/03, where 02/03 has half the weight of 03/04, I get the following top-25 rankings:

    Code:
    	UEFA			Median			Maximum
    
    1	Spain			Spain			Spain
    2	France			France			France
    3	Italy			England (+1)		England (+1)
    4	England			Italy (-1)		Italy (-1)
    5	Portugal		Portugal		Portugal
    6	Scotland		Czech Republic (+1)	Czech Republic (+1)
    7	Czech Republic		Germany (+2)		Germany (+2)
    8	Belgium			Scotland (-2)		Scotland (-2)
    9	Germany			Norway (+5)		Turkey (+1)
    10	Turkey			Turkey			Belgium (-2)
    11	Netherlands		Russia (+2)		Norway (+3)
    12	Greece			Netherlands (-1)	Netherlands (-1)
    13	Russia			Belgium (-5)		Russia
    14	Norway			Poland (+1)		Poland (+1)
    15	Poland			Greece (-3)		Greece (-3)
    16	Ukraine			Hungary (+2)		Hungary (+2)
    17	Serbia & Mont.		Denmark (+3)		Denmark (+3)
    18	Hungary			Serbia & Mont. (-1)	Ukraine (-2)
    19	Bulgaria		Ukraine (-3)		Serbia & Mont. (-2)
    20	Denmark			Switzerland (+4)	Israel (+2)
    21	Romania			Israel (+1)		Switzerland (+3)
    22	Israel			Romania (-1)		Austria (+3)
    23	Croatia			Austria (+2)		Bulgaria (-4)
    24	Switzerland		Croatia (-1)		Romania (-3)
    25	Austria			Bulgaria (-6)		Croatia (-2)
    
    Interestingly enough, all three come up with the same top 25, but in different orders.

    I used the following assumptions:

    1) For summer leagues (Norway, Russia, etc.) I used the 2003 season for 03/04, and the 2002 season for 02/03. The majority of UEFA coefficient points are earned between August and December; furthermore, in summer leagues, entrance to UEFA competitions is earned in the calendar year before the competition begins.

    2) In cases in which lower-division teams competed in Europe, I went with the guideline of halving the points earned by the team in domestic play, for each division below the top division. In most cases, the promotion line for a lower division is a bit under double the relegation line in the division above, so this rule-of-thumb works if we assume that the teams going up and down are of similar strength.

    Another thing to note: I originally used two methods of averaging out coefficients, but eventually decided that computing adjusted coefficients from aggregate data was more accurate than averaging adjusted coefficients for individual clubs. In the spreadsheet, Adj1 is the adjusted value for total possible points; Adj2 is the adjusted value for league median.

    From a quick scan of the rankings, the adjusted versions seem a bit more reflective of overall league strengths than the raw UEFA coefficients. It would be nice to extend the data an additional season or two back.

    Any thoughts/comments?
     
  2. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Spreadsheet has been updated to include the 01/02 season as well (same link as previous post). Weights are now 3 for 03/04, 2 for 02/03, and 1 for 01/02.

    Again, UEFA coefficient ranking, side-by-side with both adjusted versions, this time for all leagues that collected any UEFA coefficient points at all.

    Code:
    	UEFA			Median			Maximum
    
    1.	Spain			Spain			Spain
    2.	Italy			France (+2)		Italy
    3.	England			England			England
    4.	France			Italy (-2)		France
    5.	Portugal		Portugal		Portugal
    6.	Germany			Germany			Germany
    7.	Scotland		Czech Republic (+1)	Czech Republic (+1)
    8.	Czech Republic		Netherlands (+1)	Scotland (-1)
    9.	Netherlands		Scotland (-2)		Netherlands
    10.	Greece			Turkey (+2)		Belgium (+1)
    11.	Belgium			Belgium			Turkey (+1)
    12.	Turkey			Greece (-2)		Greece (-2)
    13.	Poland			Norway (+2)		Norway (+2)
    14.	Russia			Russia			Poland (-1)
    15.	Norway			Poland (-2)		Russia (-1)
    16.	Ukraine			Switzerland (+5)	Israel (+1)
    17.	Israel			Israel			Switzerland (+4)
    18.	Serbia & Mont.		Denmark (+2)		Denmark (+2)
    19.	Bulgaria		Hungary (+3)		Hungary (+3)
    20.	Denmark			Serbia & Mont. (-2)	Ukraine (-4)
    21.	Switzerland		Ukraine (-5)		Serbia & Mont. (-3)
    22.	Hungary			Austria (+3)		Austria (+3)
    23.	Croatia			Croatia			Bulgaria (-4)
    24.	Romania			Romania			Croatia (-1)
    25.	Austria			Bulgaria (-6)		Romania (-1)
    26.	Sweden			Slovakia (+1)		Slovakia (+1)
    27.	Slovakia		Sweden (-1)		Sweden (-1)
    28.	Cyprus			Slovenia (+2)		Slovenia (+2)
    29.	Bosnia-Herz.		Cyprus (-1)		Bosnia-Herz.
    30.	Slovenia		Bosnia-Herz. (-1)	Cyprus (-2)
    31.	Macedonia		Macedonia		Macedonia
    32.	Moldova			Moldova			Finland (+1)
    33.	Finland			Finland			Moldova (-1)
    34.	Latvia			Belarus (+1)		Belarus (+1)
    35.	Belarus			Georgia (+1)		Latvia (-1)
    36.	Georgia			Latvia (-2)		Lithuania (+1)
    37.	Lithuania		Lithuania		Georgia (-1)
    38.	Armenia			Armenia			Armenia
    39.	Malta			Malta			Malta
    40.	Albania			Iceland (+1)		Iceland (+1)
    41.	Iceland			Wales (+1)		Albania (-1)
    42.	Wales			Albania (-2)		Wales
    43.	Northern Ireland	Ireland (+1)		Ireland (+1)
    44.	Ireland			Northern Ireland (-1)	Northern Ireland (-1)
    45.	Luxembourg		Luxembourg		Luxembourg
    46.	Estonia			Estonia			Estonia
    47.	Kazakhstan		Kazakhstan		Kazakhstan
    48.	Faroe Islands		Faroe Islands		Faroe Islands
    
    
     
  3. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    And another revision, to include 2001-2005. Weights are now 4-3-2-1 from most recent to earliest.

    Code:
    UEFA				Median				Maximum
    
    1. Spain			Spain				Spain
    2. England			England				England
    3. Italy			France (+1)			Italy
    4. France			Italy (-1)			France
    5. Portugal			Germany (+1)			Germany (+1)
    6. Germany			Portugal (-1)			Portugal (-1)
    7. Netherlands			Netherlands			Netherlands
    8. Russia			Russia				Russia
    9. Greece			Greece				Belgium (+2)
    10. Scotland			Belgium (+1)			Scotland
    11. Belgium			Scotland (-1)			Greece (-2)
    12. Ukraine			Czech Republic (+2)		Czech Republic (+2)
    13. Turkey			Turkey				Turkey
    14. Czech Republic		Norway (+5)			Ukraine (-2)
    15. Austria			Ukraine (-3)			Norway (+4)
    16. Serbia & Montenegro		Austria (-1)			Austria (-1)
    17. Romania			Israel (+1)			Israel (+1)
    18. Israel			Switzerland (+5)		Hungary (+3)
    19. Norway			Hungary (+2)			Switzerland (+4)
    20. Poland			Poland				Poland
    21. Hungary			Romania (-4)			Romania (-4)
    22. Bulgaria			Serbia & Montenegro (-6)	Serbia & Montenegro (-6)
    23. Switzerland			Croatia (+1)			Croatia (+1)
    24. Croatia			Denmark (+1)			Sweden (+2)
    25. Denmark			Sweden (+1)			Denmark
    26. Sweden			Slovenia (+1)			Bulgaria (-4)
    27. Slovenia			Bulgaria (-5)			Slovenia
    28. Latvia			Slovakia (+2)			Slovakia (+2)
    29. Bosnia-Herzegovina		Bosnia-Herzegovina		Bosnia-Herzegovina
    30. Slovakia			Cyprus (+1)			Cyprus (+1)
    31. Cyprus			Georgia (+1)			Georgia (+1)
    32. Georgia			Finland (+2)			Latvia (-4)
    33. Lithuania			Latvia (-5)			Iceland (+3)
    34. Finland			Iceland (+2)			Lithuania (-1)
    35. Moldova			Moldova				Finland (-1)
    36. Iceland			Lithuania (-3)			Moldova (-1)
    37. Macedonia			Macedonia			Macedonia
    38. Ireland			Ireland				Ireland
    39. Belarus			Belarus				Belarus
    40. Albania			Albania				Albania
    41. Armenia			Armenia				Armenia
    42. Northern Ireland		Estonia (+1)			Malta (+2)
    43. Estonia			Malta (+1)			Northern Ireland (-1)
    44. Malta			Northern Ireland (-2)		Estonia (-1)
    45. Luxembourg			Luxembourg			Luxembourg
    46. Wales			Wales				Wales
    47. Faroe Islands		Faroe Islands			Faroe Islands
    48. Kazakhstan			Kazakhstan			Kazakhstan
    
     

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