The FIFA rankings look at all your games and also your best 7 games... (Section 5. Further criteria) You can check the system here: http://www.fifa.com/rank/index_E.html or if this doesn't take you right there... Go to the rankings page... and select ranking procedures from the menu at hte left. They cover a period of 8 years... so it will be another 4 years until the debacle in France is completely wiped from the slate. Note the weighting by confederation, thats a fun little multiplier. I assume it is clear as mud to everyone?
I was doing all I could to forget about the Poland game as well/. Apparently, I did a really good job until I was reminded just now. Those other rankings are cute, but they are meaningless. FIFA's rankings are meaningful only because they actually impact the WC draw. The stock market will go down for the foreseable future. As long as Bush is threatening war, world business will not be happy. Now, I haven't done all of the math exactly, but right now here are the top 7th USA results that count in the FIFA rankings (the resutls that count most): 1. USA 3-2 Portugal, 5 Jun 02 2. USA 2-0 Mexico, 17 Jun 02 3. USA 2-0 Costa Rica, 27 Jan 02 4. USA 2-1 Korea Rep., 19 Jan 02 5. USA 4-0 Honduras, 02 Mar 02 6. USA 1-0 Mexico, 03 April 02 7. USA 2-1 Jamaica, 07 Oct 01 When the next rankings come out, #7 will be devalued and the 5-0 rout of Jamaica on May 16, 2002 will take its place. When the February rankings come out and the Gold Cup matches are lost, they will be replaced by the 1-0 win over Ecuador on on March 10 and the 2-1 win over Uruguay on May 12th. Unless the USA can notch some big friendly victories between now and next May, the USA could easily fall out of the top 15 come June 2003. This will make the Gold and and the Confed Cup extremely important to the USA's seed chances.
http://www.worldcuparchive.com/GUESTS/paul20020709.html Doing quick addition/subtration based on the current ratings we moved up a point on France and a three on England from when the article's author computed the chart. However, Turkey had a big jump and is now in the picture for a seed. We stand at 9th right now, 2 points behind France and 1.17 ahead of Turkey.
Does anyone realize that these rankings take performances in tournaments and qualifying into account far more than they do random friendlies? The rankings are supposedly based on the collective efforts over a two or four year period of time, not the last six months. The rankings will change drastically during the next three years so we shouldn't go throwing parties just yet.
2006 Seeding So the discussion is no longer about the validity of the rankings or our lofty #8 ranking, but simply about whether or not we get seeded? Since debate centers around Paul Marcuccitti's article "Who will be seeded at Germany 2006", I’ve a couple of questions: Where’d Marcuccitti come up with the 50-50 weighting between historical WC performance and the FIFA rankings? FIFA has been pretty tight lipped about the exact formula in the past. Did anyone notice this paragraph? "Now, a big word of warning here: This entire article will be utterly useless if FIFA changes its system of deciding seeds for 2006. It may have reason to do so and that's another thing that I'll deal with later. But, hey, this is fun so I may as well go ahead." [/list=1] Based on Marcuccitti's projections, if the WC seeding were determined tomorrow CONCACAF would have two seeded teams! No way FIFA allows that to happen, and frankly, it'd be more than a little embarrassing.
Nah...I think its just morons!?!?!?!? <yawn> ....as yet another set of people get excited by the Fifa rankings...
Re: 2006 Seeding Well, on the first point, that is my interest in the discussion. Since national sides are always in a state of flux and play so few matches, any ranking system will always have a large degree of innaccuracy. (On a side note, the Elo rankings are actually my favorite, because they use every full international match in history!) Marcuccitti was simply reproducing the method FIFA had used to determine seeds in 1998 and 2002. Granted, before seeds were determined for the most recent WC, FIFA had a commission look into other ways of ranking teams as a means of determining who would be seeded. This was done in order to see if different methods would produce any significant difference in the seeded teams. So, as you suggest and have suggested in the past, it is entirely possible that the system will change. For example, both Mexico and the USA could wind up in the top eight under the existing method come time for the 2006 draw. However, the FIFA commission could then determine that other methods of determining seeds would in fact produce significantly different seeds. Then, FIFA would need to decide which group of the several potential groups of seeds (and therefore, which of the several groups of seeding methodologies) are preferable. As you suggest, having two CONCACAF seeds would probably not be preferable. However, with a quarterfinal finish at the most recent WC, as long as the USA keeps rising in the rankings it will be very difficult for them to not be seeded, no matter what method is used. Another thing to keep an eye on will be how FIFA changes its rankings in the coming year. The changes will not be as severe as those implemented in 1999 in an attempt to correct their obvious and complete failure as a predictor of WC success at France '98, but I wouldn't be suprised if there were at least some changes.
I plead ignorance… what were the changes implemented in 1999? By the way, what do you think of the Elephant rankings? A cursory look indicates it’d be the most accurate (IMHO), and I must admit, I like the idea of removing friendlies from the equation.
Probably the biggest change implemented in 1999 were the regional strength factors. These dictate, for instance, that intra-CONCACAF matches only count 86% as much as intra-UEFA or intra-CONMEBOl matches. I like the fiirst ten in the Elephanty rankings, but it seemed a little dogy after that point. Still, better than the other two you mentioned, as well as better than FIFA. Maybe we should ahve a bigsoccer world ranking. It won't be based on statistics, just on member voting. Rank you top 50, and that will be that. I think I'll go start that thread right now.
This will be the results 1. United States Followed closely by world powers Canada and Mexico. There really is no way to rank every team, short of playing a tournament (ie. the World Cup).
Nope, there isn't a way of ranking every team. However, if we are all going to complain about the FIFA rankings (as we always do), what not just go ahead and rank 'em ourselves. I started that thread: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14766 Obvious trolling posts witht he USA at #1 will not be counted.
BS Top 50 Ranking 50 teams would be an arduous task. I don’t follow and have never seen most of the teams I’d be ranking. To be honest even picking a top twenty would be difficult. And that’s the beauty of a mechanical system, it removes biases, politics, and in my case ignorance. That being said, my contribution to your BS Top 50 thread would be a composite of the 4 mechanical systems discussed here: FIFA, Elephant, ELO, and Kessler.