Wednesday, July 1, 2009

FIFA Releases New Rankings, World Still Confused

Bigus attempting to understand England's new ranking.


FIFA released the newest world rankings this morning, and there have been some minor changes in the top 15 teams. Considering the recent results of the Confederations Cup, it is not surprising that Brazil has vaulted into 1st place, moving up 4 spots and pushing Spain to 2nd. The former were the biggest movers within the top 10, with no one else gaining or losing more than 3 spots. However, there are some new entrants into the top 15 based on results from their past several matches.



Your new top 15 are presented here:

1 (+4) Brazil (1672 pts)
2 (-1) Spain (1590 pts)
3 (-1) Netherlands (1379 pts)
4 (0) Italy (1229 pts)
5 (-2) Germany (1207 pts)
6 (+3) Russia (1161 pts)
7 (-1) England (1135 pts)
8 (-1) Argentina (1091 pts)
9 (+1) France (1082 pts)
10 (-2) Croatia (1031 pts)
11 (+6) Greece (1001 pts)
12 (+2) USA (983 pts)
13 (+3) Switzerland (930 pts)
14 (+6) Serbia (925 pts)
15 (+9) Denmark (909 pts)


So, Greece, Serbia and Denmark all make a significant move and wind up in the top 15 based on recent performance. Brazil and the US get recognition for their achievements in the Confederations Cup, and England lose 1 position from the June rankings (but are back to where they were in May) based solely on Russia moving ahead of them.

But how exactly are these rankings calculated? Well, the rankings cover all international "A" matches over the past 4 years, with the importance of each year gradually declining (from 100%-50%-30%-20%) in reverse order (i.e. the past 12 month period is the most important), and they include the following elements:

(M) is the result of each match for Win-Draw-Loss (3 pts; 1 pt; 0 pts)
(I) is the importance of the match (1=friendly; 4=FIFA World Cup)
(T) is the strength of the opponent ( [200-FIFA ranking]/100 )
(C) is the strength of the opponent's FIFA confederation, which is based on results in the past 3 World Cups (wins per confederation per match)

So, the total points (P) accumulated is calculated as:

P = M x I x T x C x 100

If that's not enough math for the day, you can read the complete details of how the points are calculated in FIFA's handy little guide (PDF warning!).

19 comments:

Jacob said...

That's a surprisingly simple formula.

Ryan said...

So I guess FIFA is just sweeping the USA: Costa Rica result under the rug- fine by me.

Lissette said...

Wtf is wrong with the world. wtf didi Italy did too be above germany. I think MJ Did this his ranking b-4 he died. That the only explanation.

Bigus Dickus said...

It's ridiculous. FIFA and Sepp Blatter are a cluless bunch of Btazil humpers.

Bigus Dickus said...

*Brazil. Damn it.

Eladio said...

*Brasil, actually, Bigus.

Does anyone else have a problem with FIFA considering the Confederations Cup higher in importance than a World Cup Qualifier? No offense FIFA, but when you must label "Small Tournaments" under importance figure "1", the Confederations Cup needs to be there as well.

BurgerBrother said...

antibiotics fixed my sepp blatter

Bigus Dickus said...

@Eladio.

http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS306US306&q=brazil&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=0JNLSr7ZJIaGtgfDnI3dDg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=889383329

Not to me sir, not to me.

Eladio said...

@ Bigus: Why do you English have to butcher everything? It's not enough to switch every word that ends in "er" to "re", you have bastardize a great country's name too?

From now on, I'll be referring to the Canaries as "Norwitch City".

Teeknuts said...

That's a smart tie BD.

Flor said...

The most ridiculous thing to me, seems to be that the amount of games played is not taken into account. So playing 10 games, losing 9 and winning one is the same as playing 1 game and winning it.

Bigus Dickus said...

@Eladio. How do the French and Germans refer to England?

@Teeknuts. Thanks. I bought it at the Newcastle United lifestyle store.

http://unprofessionalfoul.com/2009/06/newcastle-united-reveal-latest-line-of.html

Eladio said...

"@Eladio. How do the French and Germans refer to England?"

Losers who haven't won a World Cup for over 40 years?

The NY Kid said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The NY Kid said...

/takes breath


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The Fan's Attic said...

+4. The number of World Cups they have won.

Bigus Dickus said...

@Eladio.

Snicker, snicker....

Branden said...

I've always preferred

http://www.eloratings.net/

Takes into account losses as well, you can look back through the history and see how each game affected a team's ranking. There is also a page with a pretty simple formula.

To top it all off it has Canada ranked about 30 places higher than FIFA does!

jjf3 said...

@Eladio:
comment of the day on the entire Interwebs.

Congrats!