That's why Senegal are ranked pretty low in ELO. Senegal played several games in the COSAFA Cup this year with a squad where I don't know a single player lol.
It's funny because their ranking methodology is actually superior to FIFA'S but then they just screw the whole thing up by counting these mickey mouse tournaments. Do they even stop to think about why the CAF teams are ranked so low ? Do they really think B and C tournaments should be weighted so heavily, if at all ?
I've been analyzing Elo ratings data and here's my conclusion. As I guess you know, Elo ratings is an incremental process exchanging the same amount of points between two teams depending on their past ranking. Therefore, that means that when a game is played between two teams of the same confederation, the grand total of points for the confederation remains unchanged. Yet each confederation is largely its own bubble, with most international games being played within the same confederation. Therefore, the only significant opportunity to exchange points from a confederation to another is the world cup (friendlies having a very low coefficient). And when you look how things have been going in the past 50 years, CAF and AFC teams have lost a lot more world cup games than they won, meaning they are losing points to teams from other confederations. As such, the grand total of points being distributed among CAF and AFC teams is actually decreasing. Therefore, even when a CAF or AFC team wins every single game within its own confederation, it reaches some kind of max level that is lower than what it would be in UEFA or CONMEBOL, because they only meet teams with lower rankings and have no opportunity to win tons of points in beating an even higher ranked team.
FIFA discriminates against draws. It doesn't reward teams enough for drawing against strong opponents. It also doesn't punish teams enough for drawing against weak opponents. So the Confeds where draws are more common will suffer. IMO you have the most draws in CAF and Conembol. But all the Conembol teams are ranked highly so the draw bias doesn't affect their teams as much as it does in CAF. Ecuador seems to be the unfortunate outlier in Conembol in regards to FIFA. Ecuador has recent draws against Colombia, Peru, Brazil, and Chile which wouldn't do them much good in FIFA but would give them a nice chunk of points in my system.
I think you have explained part of the reason for the low ranking by CAF teams very well. The other part that should be added is the fact those limited points in CAF are in turn distributed among a greater number of teams than in the AFC (or Concacaf) as there is greater parity among the top 10 in CAF than the AFC or Concacaf. That in turn means fewer CAF teams are able to have the kind of winning streaks, undefeated streaks, and such, as you might see among top ranked AFC teams. Take Iran, for instance, which is ranked 20th by ELO and 1st among AFC teams. Iran has been undefeated in its last 13 games with 12 wins, no losses, and 1 draw. In the last World Cup cycle, similarly, Iran went undefeated for a very long time, including finishing 18 qualifying matches undefeated, As such, its ELO rating relative to CAF teams was very high 4 years ago as well.
This is partially true, but Algeria is undefeated in 29 matches (currently #5 on all time record)with 2 wins against Senegal, 2 wins against Nigeria, a win against Colombia, a win against Tunisia, a draw against Mexico yet somehow is still pretty low in the ranking. So some of your points go a little way to explaining things, but not nearly enough.
Which is why Algeria is now the highest ranked team in CAF. But they are still ranked only 32nd because: 1) they started with very few points compared to Iran, since they had terrible results last cycle; and (2) they had to make all the lost ground from a very limited number of points CAF had earned from its WC18 campaign.
That's nonsense because Canada started from even below them yet have rapidly jumped up, despite only 1 major victory over Mexico.
Canada (40) is ranked below Algeria (32) by ELO. But Canada, despite being undefeated for a long stretch of qualifying games now and in 1st place in the Concacaf standings, and good results before then the past year, still is ranked way below the US and Mexico precisely because they started from such a low point. Besides that, CONCACAF has one thing CAF doesn't have: a team like Mexico that pulls a lot of points to the confederation as a whole by virtue of its consistent World Cup record. When you have a team like Mexico with a lot of ELO points earned over the years without much fluctuation, every other team that faces them in the confederation and can get results against them, sees their rating go up, which in turn presents more and more teams which can earn such points that are being dispersed.
oops, my bad. But the reasons I mentioned about it being much easier to pick up points in Concacaf than CAF still would apply.
No you're reasons are all bogus. Mexico never makes it past the 2nd round. You don't get ANY points for making the 2nd round and losing, therefore Mexico isn't really doing anything that at least one CAF team does every world cup. Even Senegal last WC isn't going to get any less points than Japan who advanced beyond them. We don't have to guess why ELo is off, and it isn't for any of the reasons you mentioned. It's because they count mickey mouse tournaments that nobody has even heard of, and CAF has plenty of those tournaments which often have a set of qualifiers as well.
I don't believe that is the reason. If it is, please explain the mickey mouse tournament that caused Algeria (undefeated in 32 games) lose points and explain how?
The major difference comes from the qualification format. Algeria has only been playing a preliminary round with very low-rated teams (Burkina Faso, Niger and Djibouti). On the other hand, Canada and Iran are playing the final qualifying round with the very top teams of their confederations. Never forget, the stronger is the team you beat, the more points your earn. Winning 10-0 against San Marino will give you 0 point, whereas winning 1-0 against Brazil in Copa America final will give you +40 points. Algeria won tons of point during the Africa Cup of Nations they won in 2019. They started at 1546 points and 7 games later they were at 1707 points. But since then, they played mostly friendlies which have a poor K coefficent (meaning you don't win or lose a lot from them) or qualifiers against very low-rated teams. This explains their stagnation.
I should emphasize, moreover, that unlike Algeria and Canada, Iran already had a good rating and didn't have to climb that much anyway.
3 years ago this time, Iran ranked 19th in ELO and had 1827 points. Algeria ranked 75 and had 1532 points. Today Iran has basically kept its position, ranks 20th by ELO with 1836 points. Algeria, OTOH, has climbed to 32 and has 1753 points. https://www.international-football....&confed=&prev-year=&prev-month=11&prev-day=23
When using Elo, it's always better to think in ratings (the number of points you have) than in rankings (your position in the table). There's a bigger difference of points (112 points) between the 1st and the 5th, than there is between the 33rd and 57th (105 points). So yes, when you start with a rating of 1600 pts as did Canada, your ranking can change pretty fast particularly if you beat better-rated opponents. However, once you're in the top 5, things get a lot more frozen as all the teams mostly win against lower-rated teams that don't give them a lot of points.
https://www.international-football....nd-year=2021&end-month=11&end-day=23&type=day Average Elo ratings from November 23rd 2014 to November 23rd 2021 1 Brazil 88 games 2090.95 2 France 91 games 2023.82 3 Germany 88 games 2019.40 4 Spain 84 games 2009.01 5 Argentina 88 games 1998.56 6 Belgium 86 games 1992.70 7 Portugal 91 games 1963.00 8 Colombia 84 games 1959.90 9 England 91 games 1949.06 10 Netherlands 75 games 1946.36 11 Italy 85 games 1934.28 12 Uruguay 79 games 1923.30 13 Chile 90 games 1887.07 14 Mexico 125 games 1882.87 15 Croatia 84 games 1866.93 16 Switzerland 80 games 1863.76 17 Denmark 79 games 1834.58 18 Peru 88 games 1831.88 19 Sweden 91 games 1811.73 20 Ukraine 76 games 1798.21 21 Ecuador 74 games 1795.14 22 Poland 77 games 1794.93 23 Iran 76 games 1768.13 24 South Korea 92 games 1763.20 25 United States 112 games 1763.19 26 Serbia 73 games 1761.98 27 Wales 72 games 1757.03 28 Turkey 80 games 1755.48 29 Japan 93 games 1746.23 30 Russia 81 games 1744.82 31 Czech Republic 78 games 1741.54 32 Austria 73 games 1738.40 33 Slovakia 74 games 1734.89 34 Paraguay 71 games 1733.66 35 Venezuela 73 games 1732.93 36 Costa Rica 97 games 1729.21 37 Ireland 73 games 1724.72 38 Bosnia and Herzegovina 67 games 1718.87 39 Senegal 79 games 1718.34 40 Romania 68 games 1715.96 41 Australia 68 games 1712.01 42 Iceland 89 games 1697.94 43 Scotland 67 games 1687.27 44 Nigeria 68 games 1678.01 45 Hungary 74 games 1660.52 46 Ivory Coast 71 games 1657.96 47 Norway 66 games 1657.88 48 Algeria 75 games 1652.58 49 Morocco 73 games 1640.80 50 Greece 68 games 1640.80
Its already been noted that Senegal played in the 2021 cosafa cup this past summer where they lost against Namibia (a very lowly ranked team) drew against Eswatini (another very lowly ranked team) and drew against South Africa (still ranked quite a bit lower than Senegal) These games resulted in a massive loss of points despite this tournament not featuring any regular players. So this explains why Senegal is ranked quite low, as for Algeria I could only dig up a loss against Morocco in a qualification match for the home based nations cup. But Morocco isn't that lowly ranked for this to be a major loss of points. But at some point you are going to have to address why EVERY SINGLE CAF side is ranked lower in Elo than both FIFA and my rankings. Laughable that Nigeria is not even in the top 50. Something is very wrong. The "mickey mouse tournament" thing is part of it, but I dont think its the only thing.
yes I understand all of that. but Algeria should have climbed higher, but its not surprising they did not when Elo ranks the top AFrican sides that Algeria had to beat to win the Afcon so low. As far as I am concerned Elo is worse than FIFA. I can complain about little things here and there that I feel FIFA has wrong, but Elo has CAF completely way off that those rankings cannot be taken seriously.
Well considering Burkina Faso is ranked higher than any team Iran has to play in their FINAL round of qualifying other than South Korea (who they could not beat at home) I dont think that is a very strong argument. Canada has some impressive results but shouldn't be above Algeria because of one win against Mexico.
Burkina Faso also ranked higher than Honduras, El Salvador, and Panama. Jamaica is just slightly above them.
:Listen, I was the first here to take issue with how CAF teams end up being rated by ELO. But my main point to you was that ELO's poor ratings for CAF aren't because of counting mickey mouse tournaments. It is because of several factors mentioned, including the one you are trying to ignore by this misleading comment about Iran/ S. Korea. Misleading because: 1- Iran's draw against S.Korea at home was after Iran had recorded several wins (and zero losses) against S.Korea in the past decade (including the past 2 WCQs). Iran gained its ELO points over the years because of the consistent results it was getting throughout this time period, when as I mentioned Iran was already ranked even higher than it is now. In this particular cycle, Iran has simply (more or less) maintained its Elo rank even though as the higher ranked team, it actually lost Elo points drawing S. Korea. 2- The sparsity of CAF teams in qualifying for CAF sides to earn significant Elo points from is just a fact. The same is to a lesser extent true for the AFC (esp. for Iran, which as the highest ranked side doesn't have the luxury of gaining that many ELO points against AFC teams, including S.Korea), but the situation in Concacaf is different when it comes to trying to understand why Canada has been able to climb higher than Algeria.
Incidentally, I don't want to go totally overboard when it comes to dismissing the negative effect of minor CAF tournaments on the ranking of some CAF teams either. Senegal, in particular, did suffer a loss of points from its results in the 2021 Cosafa Cup. They went from 1733 to 1686 Elo points, dropping from #37 to #42. But that is a minor factor compared to the more important ones (e.g., no really consistent/dominant sides over a longer time span than a few years, resulting in a sparsity of CAF sides with significant ELO points for other CAF teams to be able to earn that many points against) when it comes to CAF's poor ELO rating.
For purposes of understanding (not justifying) ELO ratings of CAF v AFC, the most analogous comparisons would be: Iran (20th, 1836 pts) v Morocco (41st, 1721 points): both qualified to WC18 undefeated and both on top of their qualifying group for WC22, both in the same group in WC18, with Iran ending up with 4 points while Morocco (despite deserving better) only 1 point Japan (31st, 1760 pts) vs. Senegal (42nd, 1705 pts): in the same WC18 group where they both earned the same points; both finished runner up in their respective continental championship (2019 Asian Cup, 2019 AFCON) Algeria (32nd, 1753 pts) vs Qatar (53rd, 1642 pts): both absent from WC18, both won their respective continental championship (2019 Asian Cup, 2019 AFCON) earning massive points from similarly low points S. Korea (27th, 1787 pts) v Nigeria (51st, 1646 pts): both are historically the most recurring WC qualifier from their respective confederation and both earned 3 points in WC18, @vancity eagle would be in the best position, if he was so inclined, to tell us why Nigeria are ranked so low Saudi Arabia (54th, 1683 pts) vs. Egypt (56th, 1629): both with historically strong title records in their respective continental championship but not lately, qualified to WC18 being absent from recent World Cups (Egypt much longer than Saudi Arabia) ended in the same group in WC18, Egypt went pointless after losing to Saudi Arabia, while the Saudis finished with those 3 points