Okay, so the EURO looks like it's good for up to about +/- 50 points..... Looks like a strong enough win by Germany over USA in the upcoming friendly could put them into the #1 slot.... <shudders> Someone explain to me how USA won no points from its first 1-0 over Canada and lost a point from its next 1-0 win over Canada - do the rankings penalize you for not winning by enough? I've worked with Elo rankings before, and it's impossible for your expected result to be more than 1, so a win should always give an increase in points.... I know FIFA's ranking for the women are closer to Elo than for the men, but if they still messed with that as well.... =-/
Yes. If you play a mediocre team and only go up 1 goal, or tie, then it can cost you points, even if it's a win. I can't remember who, but someting similar happened to Norway last year, and they lost points rather than gained them. Wait -- I think when they beat New Zealand by just one goal they lost points. Oh -- and they lost 2 points from tying France in the Euros: http://www.fifa.com/associations/association=nor/ranking/gender=f/index.html And let me be the first to thank Sweden for the generous 45 points they gave us in the span of 2 months. Takk!
Huh. Well then they messed with the Elo formula more than I thought. Losing points from a tie are expected if you have more points, but a win should always give you points, at least in Elo. I really don't get why FIFA doesn't just use that. Oh well.
The women's FIFA ranking is really woeful; it's even worse that the men's. Granted that it's really difficult to get credible results with such a small number of matches, but there are other rankings on the internet that do better.
I don't think so. The difference at the moment is 35 points. Even a large win against US, brings Germany only some 7-8 points and takes some 7-8 points from US. There would still be at least some 20 points difference. Unless US loses to a low rank team (not Germany or Brazil), Germany must wait until Algrave 2009 to have a chance to challenge the first place. Here is probably the main fault of ranking: if for example Germany loses a friendly 0-2 to Iceland, it must beat US two times 2-0 to compensate the lost. Conclusion: To be high in ranking is all about, not losing to low rank teams, instead of being able to beat stong teams.
Do "official" matches (tournaments, UEFA cup etc) count the same as friendlies? And do you get extra points for special achievements (qualifying for a tournament, advancing out of the group stage, winning a tournament etc)?
I think they're weighted differently, although I can't be totally sure. When Norway beat Sweden 1-0 before the Euros, we got 19 points. When we beat them in the Euros 3-1, we got 26 points. Yes, we had two more goals on them, but they also got one in. They also list the matches differently. As in, they note if a match was a friendly, or in the case of the Euros, a 'women's continental final.'
The weighting is different, but you don't get any point for advancing in a tournament. Look at England: They are the runner-up of EU 2009, but got only "4" points, just becasue they lost 2-6 to Germany and finished third in group-stage. It doesn't matter at all that they have reached final. However Italy reached only to quartel-final but got "20" points. This sucks! The weight factor for friendly's between high rank teams is "20", while for EU is "30". I don't think one can get 26 points from one match. You won points by beating Sweden once in a friendly and once in EU , and by beating Iceland in EU. You lost some points by losing to Germany in EU. In total you won 26 points for the last three mounths.
I don't think I'll take these rankings too seriously. Unless Germany should ever make it to the top, of course.
If that's the case, how did we end up with 26 points after winning against Sweden in the Euros (26), and then lose 11 points after losing to Germany, but we still end up with 26 points, as listed on the main Fifa rankings chart? Code: 07/09 GER 3:1 (0:1) NOR Womens Continental Final -11.00 04/09 SWE 1:3 (0:2) NOR Womens Continental Final 26.00 30/08 NOR 1:1 (1:1) FRA Womens Continental Final -2.00 27/08 ISL 0:1 (0:1) NOR Womens Continental Final 7.00 24/08 GER 4:0 (1:0) NOR Womens Continental Final -13.00 19/08 SWE 0:1 (0:0) NOR Friendly Women 19.00 If I do the math by giving each match the weight on the right, the numbers add up and we did get 26 points total. But only if I count the Sweden match as being worth 26 points. Start off with 19 points, subtract 13, add 7, minus 2, plus 26 and minus 11. That adds up to 26 points. I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to figure it all out.
If you really want to know, read this document. You will either get your PhD in the procedure or you'll go insane. I think the later happened to me. http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/r&a-wwr/52/00/99/fs-590_06e_wwrlong.pdf
I will read it, learn it, understand it, verify it, then suggest a completely different version that fixes its problems.
The calculation makes senese. At the end Norway wins 26 points in total as FIFA indicates. But have you calculated the points for each match yourself , or they can be found somewhere in the web? I would like to see how Germany has done in single matches.
I don't know if FIFA contains a master list of individual match points, but they list the most recent matches from that ranking period on their team page: http://www.fifa.com/associations/association=ger/ranking/gender=f/index.html Go to the master ranking list, then click on a country to see how the points are divied up for that period. Germany's: Code: 10/09 ENG 2:6 (1:2) GER Womens Continental Final 11.00 07/09 GER 3:1 (0:1) NOR Womens Continental Final 10.00 04/09 GER 2:1 (1:0) ITA Womens Continental Final 5.00 30/08 GER 1:0 (0:0) ISL Womens Continental Final 0.00 27/08 FRA 1:5 (0:3) GER Womens Continental Final 11.00 24/08 GER 4:0 (1:0) NOR Womens Continental Final 14.00 06/08 GER 3:1 (0:0) RUS Friendly Women 0.00 29/07 GER 0:0 JPN Friendly Women -9.00 25/07 GER 6:0 (4:0) NED Friendly Women 1.00
And 0 points for winning against Russia and Iceland. So these two countries are considered to be worthless? (I know that 0 points means, that both teams got the result they were expected to get)
I don't know why FIFA had to mess up with the ELO system so much. I know ELO is used in Chess and it works very simply. If I remember it correctly: 1) If you beat an opponent with same ranking, you gain 16 pts. They lose 16. 2) If you beat an opponent 400 pts higher or more, you gain 32. They lose 32. 3) If you beat an opponent 400 pts lower or more, you gain 2. They lose 2. I could see adding a factor for more important matches and maybe taking into account the home or away factor. That should be sufficient. After all, it is just a ranking, it does not guarantee a result. Teams still have to play their matches no matter what. What more, the way the current ranking works, top teams may very well be reluctant to schedule game against opponents where they have nothing to gain but everything to lose.
I think also you have to consider the strength of the teams beaten to reach the final. Without talking about this particular case, imagine a team like Belgium beat Belarus, Kazakhstan and Georgia to reach the final, and England beat Norway, Denmark and Sweden. You cannot then say that these two teams are equal because they both reached the final. It could be that some of the teams that England beat (who did not reach the final) are better than Belgium. I hope this makes sense.
FIFA World Ranking for December relased ; No change in top 8, France up to number 9 and Denmark down to number 10. Highest climber : Northern Ireland up 6 to number 63. http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ranking/news/newsid=1149729.html#usa+extend+their+lead http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/r...r=f/fullranking.html#confederation=0&rank=528
New FIFA ranking today : 1 USA 2 Germany 3 Brazil 4 Sweden 5 Japan +1 5 North Korea 7 Norway 8 France +1 8 England 10 Canada +2 http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ranking/lastranking/gender=f/fullranking.html
With a better performance at the Algarve Cup it looks like 5th place might have been a possibility. Any idea how many points Norway would have got if they had managed to hold on to their 2-0 lead in the match against Sweden?
Probably somewhere between 8 and 10 - so 4-6 more than Norway got. (This taken from a Denmark 2-1 win over Norway - which is roughly the same in terms of rankings - being worth 6 points.)