Analysis Resource: World Cup Draw and ELO Ratings

How do ELO ratings differ from FIFA's, in terms of weighting current results vs past results, friendlies vs competitions, etc?

 

Just looking at the Top 10's, I'd tend to agree that ELO does a better job at ranking teams.

The one exception being that ELO rated France at #3, which seems a bit high to me.

 

ELO underates Argentina and Germany and overates Sweden, France and probably the Czechs.

 

Done this in a bit more detail here:

https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=276651&highlight=Serie

 

The ELOs shed an interesting light on what the toughest groups are.

If you add all of the scores for each group (lower scores being the more difficult), the groups rank like this, hard to easy:

F (59), C (71), E (82), A (96), B (103), D (113), H (124), G (133).

Group F with Brazil turns out to be surprisingly competitive, especially if you concede Brazil as one of the two teams going through. It's a group of "secondary death" on these rankings, with the most scoring parity among the three teams not ranked highest in each group. Put another way, it has the highest ranked team (Australia, 24) as the worst team in the group. Group E (ours) has Ghana, ranked 56, as the worst team in the group.

C and E remain tough groups in this scoring, while G remains the weakest.

 

how so?

 

The message is the same whether ELO or FIFA: Group E has the toughest 3 teams. It may not be the Group of Death when counting the 4th team, but from the perspective of "three excellent teams, only two can get through," it cannot be beaten.

 

Argentina and Germany should be rated higher -- Argentina in the top 3 and Germany in the top 10, while France should be somewhere between 5 and 10, Sweden outside the top 10 and the Czechs closer to #10 than #5.

I would go:

1. Brazil
2. Holland
3. Argentina
4. England
5. Italy
6. France
7. Portugal
8. Czech Republic
9. Spain
10. Germany

 

I don't necessarily think you're wrong, based on the quality of the players. Based on results, as most rankings are, I think the ranking is fair.

 

I'm a little dissappointed by this thread. It is not what it is purported to be. I thought it would be about the groupings and "elo ratings". But instead it is about groupings and "elo standings". For example, the USA's elo rating is 1820, and its standing is 14.

Here are some examples of the difference. The USA and Japan are 14 and 21 in the elo standings, but are only separated by 24 elo points. OTOH, Germany and Croatia are 11 and 13 in the elo standings, but are separated by 34 elo points.

 

Really, I don't see it that way. Look at my examples:

1. Argentina -- led COMEBOL qualifying, decent CONFED Cup showing, lost to Brazil in the final of the Copa America.
2. France -- non-factor in last Euro, struggled in qualifying, non-entity in the last World Cup.
3. Czech Republic, decent in Euro 2004, only OK in qualifying and non- qualifier in WC 2002.
4. Germany -- 2nd in last World Cup finals, decent in CONFED Cup, terrible in last European Cup.

My ratings may be wrong, but they are certainly result-oriented.

 

Germany also lost to Slovakia and Turkey recently. Argentina lost a few games recently as well.

And, in any case, Elo uses a different formula than FIFA.

A big thing in its favor is that it issues no mulligans. However, one could also separate the standings vs. the trends. Some teams can be shooting up the charts, others sliding down. The current position is merely a snapshot of the teams play over the 12-24 months.

BTW, if one looks at historical data, Elo has the Dutch at 17 going into the WC'74. As I recall, they were a bit better than that on the field of play.

 

Elo follows the same philosophy as FIFA as far as giving different weights to different competitions -- I don't recall, offhand, if they go as far as introducing a confederation-wise multiplier. Whereas FIFA weights results, Elo does not -- every team's current Elo rating is a composite of every match they've ever played. In fact, within the three or four years, they expanded their results database back in the early part of the century, and the modern rankings were shuffled a bit in consequence. The points assigned in the exchange system serve some of the purpose of FIFA's annual weighting, tending to drag the current ratings toward current performance.

 

I should have said that my ratings are result-oriented, but limited to real results, not friendlies.

 

Since someone above hadn't seen...

Group F (7393pts) - Brazil, Croatia, Australia, Japan
Group C (7333pts) - Argentina, Ivory Coast, Serbia, Netherlands
Group E (7257pts) - Italy, Ghana, United States, Czechs
Group A (7223pts) - Germany, Costa Rica, Poland, Ecuador
Group B (7122pts) - England, Paraguay, Trinidad, Sweden
Group D (7032pts) - Mexico, Iran, Angola, Portugal
Group H (6993pts) - Spain, Ukraine, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia
Group G (6946pts) - France, Switzerland, South Korea, Togo

 

Well Slovakia and Turkey are not in the World Cup 2006.

But you forgot to mention friendly game against FRANCE. 0:0 but with much better performance of german team than french team!!

and you forgot to mention draw with Holland 2:2 - Holland played better, but we managed to turn our opportunities into goals and Holland did not win!!!
And Holland and France are in the World Cup.

We had good Confed Cup.

I don´t see german team so tragic. We will make the world Cup home.
We can win!!!

Maybe it is good that many understimate german team.


Bltleo
GERMANY

 

This is the same order that you get when you use the actual ranking as opposed to the total ELO score. Doesn't change the implications of which group is tougher or easier.

 

Average ELO rating is a good measure of a group's overall strength, but from a "Group of Death" perspective, median is probably better.


Here're the medians of the groups

Group E: ITA, GHA, USA, CZE, 10.5
Group C: ARG, CIV, SCG, NED, 16
Group F: BRA, CRO, AUS, JPN, 17
Group B: ENG, PAR, TRI, SWE, 18
Group D: MEX, IRN, ANG, POR, 18.5
Group A: GER, CRC, POL, ECU, 24.5
Group H: ESP, UKR, TUN, KSA, 32
Group G: FRA, SUI, KOR, TOG, 36.5


Since there're 4 teams in each group, the median turns out to be the average ranking of the 2nd & 3rd teams, and thus gives an idea of the quality of the teams that won't make it out of the group stage.


Another interesting thing to look at is the standard deviation of the group, since this gives an indication of how competitive a group might be (low standard deviation --> low variation --> any team has a good chance to make the knockout stage)

Here are the groups ranked by standard deviation:

Group F: 8.9
Group A: 10.7
Group C: 13.7
Group H: 17.1
Group G: 20.3
Group E: 20.8
Group D: 22.7
Group B: 23.0

Thus Groups F, A and C should be relatively competitive, with all clubs having a relatively good shot to make it out of the group stage.

 

Here are a few more numbers. A couple of numbers have changed since Serie did the previous calculations.

Rankings
All 4
F 7393, C 7333, E 7257, B 7179, A 7123, D 7038, H 6993, G 6946

Top 3
E 5660, F 5632, C 5628, B 5562, D 5493, A 5413, H 5378, G 5362

Bottom 3
F 5391, C 5374, E 5326, A 5255, B 5189, D 5158, H 5065, G 5000

Top 2
C 3867, E 3840, F 3836, B 3807, G 3693, D 3692, A 3680, H 3667

Bottom 2
F 3557, C 3466, A 3443, E 3417, D 3346, H 3326, B 3315, G 3253

Standings
All 4
F 59, C 71, E 82, A 96, B 103, D 111, H 124, G 133

Top 3
E 26, C 34, F 35, B 40, D 44, A 60, H 70, G 76

Bottom 3
F 58, C 69, E 77, A 85, B 99, D 102, H 118, G 130

Top 2
C 10, E 12, B 14, F 14, D 25, A 27, G 31, H 35

Bottom 2
F 45, C 61, A 69, E 70, D 86, B 89, H 89, G 102


Group G is the weakest in all but the top 2.

Groups C,E,F are the clearly the strongest.
Place in tables above per C,E,F
For Rankings
F 1,2,1,3,1 = 8
C 2,3,2,1,2 = 10
E 3,1,3,2,4 = 13

For Standings
F 1,3,1,3,1 = 9
C 2,2,2,1,2 = 9
E 3,1,3,2,4 = 13

Based only on elo, the group of death to me is:
1. F
2. C
3. E

 

in that france-germany match, the french were testing a lot on 2nd line players...

add zidane to the french mix, and they become a very different squad...

2002, they had no zidane, no pires, and no playmaker to run their team...

with zidane and pires, they are very dangerous