FIFA 2023 WWC qualifiers

Yup! Italy didn't drop quite as many points as I thought, plus CHN/KOR didn't gain as many. And I'm rather surprised about NGA dropping as many as they did. They didn't have a great tournament, sure, but they still they still went 3-1-2. Guess it shows just how unbalanced the CAF rankings were for NGA to be that far ahead of everyone else that the wins meant basically nothing.

 

That's not accurate at all. Rule #1 is ranking alone, as they got rid of the confederation-based pot system a couple cycles ago; rule #2 is that the playoff spots will all be pot 4, if the previous men's WC is evidence. Even if the playoff draw happens before/at the main draw, we won't know which teams come from the playoffs, so even if it's a near certainty that the UEFA tame comes through, you can't make the pots with that assumption - hence all playoffs defaulting to pot 4. CAN and BRA will be pot 2 teams, along with two of the AFC teams. JAM+CRC will be pot 3, and PHI pot 4. You even repped @Lohmann 's correction to my pots, how did you come up with your own that are so different?

 

Well, seed #2 in the playoffs, remember. Of the playoff teams, there's a grand total of four WC appearances: TPE, CHI, THA, and CMR all at one each. Just because they haven't appeared recently doesn't mean they're much further behind anyone else. (And CMR, who have appeared recently, are still pretty far behind others.)

What's more surprising is is that TPE is resurging at just the right time (or, rather, finally holding steady through a WC expansion). They haven't even qualified for the Asian Cup since 2008 before returning this year. To be fair, of course, they've always been just bubbling under the necessary level. They've been remarkably consistent - from 2010 to 2020, they've remained in the 35th-42th bracket in the rankings. An expansion of the WC to 32 teams puts them on that level of "yes qualification is reasonable".

Honestly I'm really hoping they come through if only to end their dubious WC drought, by default the longest on record aside from anyone who hasn't ever qualified before. Qualifying for the very first one and then slipping in pace with the expansion of the tournament has been severely unlucky for them IMO.

 

I find it humorous that TPE has passed CHI by a whopping 0.3 points. That'd be within error for just about any ranking anywhere.

I'm still mad about DPK being allowed to stay ranked

Bit surprised to see how many points BLR gained but I guess that def of CZE was worth it

Also weird: TKM gaining 35pts from an 0-2-2 record. I know they weren't ranked before, having only played their first 5 matches ever in 2019, but I don't see the math working out there... Especially since I don't see a 35pt deficit in the four teams they played this summer.

 

They didn't start using decimals until the April '21 rankings, so it's been barely over a year that this finer-resolution stuff has been in play. Still pretty new!

TBQH, I think it's good that they added a decimal point, but I don't think two decimal points was necessary. I mean, the resolution doesn't matter much after the 10s place anyway when it comes to comparing overall team strength... That fact taken alone would make it seem like you only need resolution up to the 1s place, but since friendlies often only ship a handful of points to begin with, that's why I think the 10ths place was a good addition. (Just not the 100ths place.) It's important for single matches, but not meaningful at all to the overall rankings.

 

Not really... That is, they're currently applying the exact same rule to all nations. In the rules update last year, they made the change that said nations would not be ruled inactive unless the failed to play a recognized game for an entire four-year timespan. Granted, you could say the rule change itself was politically motivated... But once the rule was on the books, there's no further surprise as to why they're "still ranked" - emphasis on the "still". They're going to linger until the official clock runs out; the only way for them to become unranked, at this point, is to not play another recognized game before March 2023.

And I know someone else in the ranking thread once made the comment of "well, the rankings are mostly there for the WC, so it should take a full WC cycle of inactivity to fall out of the rankings." Which, okay, there's definitely some logic there... But it doesn't pass the sniff test for what it *generally* means for a team to be "active". You'd expect an "active" team to play at least once every calendar year or so.

 

That is, I think, the only major problem I see with Elo ranking systems with soccer - a lack of rating decay due to inactivity. I totally understand it from the internal logic of the Elo system, because the system is designed to be zero-sum and designed for a game that's frequently played and didn't really run the risk of players "aging out" and/or "falling out of practice". But that's a flaw when you expand the system to athletic sports, especially on the national team level.