Fifa rankings accurate for Euro2004?

redspider

Its well recognised that the FIFA rankings are not accurate *between* football confederations/ continents, and FIFA's published scoring system also recognises that, favouring weaker continents.

However, within a federation, such as UEFA, the rankings are reasonably reflective on teams recent past abilities.

The FIFA rankings for the euro2004 teams are currently as follows:

2 France
.... out - 3 Spain
5 Netherlands
.... out - 8 Germany
.... out - 10 Italy
11 Czech Republic
13 England
.... dnq (14 Republic of Ireland)
15 Denmark
... dnq (17 Belgium)
18 Sweden
.... out - 20 Croatia
22 Portugal
.... out - 31 Russia
35 Greece
.... out - 40 Bulgaria
.... out - 47 Switzerland
.... out - 53 Latvia


A few interesting points to note:

+ Ireland was the highest placed team not to qualify!
+ Spain are the biggest scalp so far, followed by Germany and Italy.
+ the teams with lower rankings (apart from Greece who scraped through by a single goal) are out

You can never predict football, but I think the winner is likely to come from the remaining top 4, ie: FR, NL, CZ, EN

Therefore, does the hypothesis hold: that FIFA's rankings of teams within the same confederation are by and large accurate?

To me, it looks like they are.

Dont be at yourself

Spain are far from being the second best team in Europe. Other than that, pretty accurate!

p.pete

Are Ireland and Belgium the only teams in the top 50 not to qualify? (I realise I could find this out for myself). If so then it definitely prooves the poor accuracy between Federations.

Certainly looks a good theory as far as Europe is concerned, need to compare with Africa and South America though...

redspider

Originally posted by p.pete
Are Ireland and Belgium the only teams in the top 50 not to qualify?

No, there are loads from Uefa in the top-50 not included.
Only two of the Uefa teams in the world top-20 didnt qualify for euro2004 and that was ourselves and Belgium.

knobbles

there's a lot of points going during championships so you'll see the likes of portugal, denmark, sweden and greece rising a fair bit in the next rankings.
Interesting to look at the euro rankings alright:

1 France
2 Spain
3 Netherlands
4 Turkey
5 Germany
6 Italy
7 Czech Republic.....surely worthy of at least 4th
8 England.....should be swapped with turkey
9 Republic of Ireland
10 Denmark
11 Belgium.....should be as far down as russia/greece imo
12 Sweden
13 Croatia
14 Portugal
15 Poland
16 Romania
17 Russia
18 Greece
19 Norway
20 Bulgaria


reasonably accurate i think

knobbles

Originally posted by redspider
Only two of the Uefa teams in the world top-20 didnt qualify for euro2004 and that was ourselves and Belgium.

make that 3 - Turkey

pickarooney

Czech Republic only lost one match in two years, and beat pretty much everyone. How come they're only 11th? Probably cause they missed the last world cup or other such nonsense.

eirebhoy

Originally posted by knobbles
7 Czech Republic.....surely worthy of at least 4th

They failed to qualify for the last world cup.

Originally posted by knobbles
make that 3 - Turkey

Poland, Romania, Norway.

Ranking points for friendlies should be scrapped TBH. Here's more rankings that I haven't really looked at:
http://www.internationalmark.com/ranking.html
http://www.eloratings.net/ <

---

Probably the most realistic.
http://www.elerankings.com/frameworldfootball.htm

eirebhoy

Here is the european top 20 from eloratings.com:

1 France
2 Czechia
3 Spain
4 England
5 Italy
6 Netherlands
7 Portugal
8 Denmark
9 Turkey
10 Sweden
11 Ireland
12 Germany
13 Romania
14 Croatia
15 Greece
16 Belgium
17 Russia
18 Norway
19 Poland
20 Serbia and Montenegro

redspider

Yeah, I missed Turkey. I would need to look at their results to figure out why they are so high. Obviously their success in a recent world cup has helped and it takes a while to drift down the FIFA table. I didnt miss Norway and the others as they are not in FIFA's top-20.

Here are all the UEFA countries according to the FIFA Jun 2004 list:

Rank Team Pts
2 France 812 2 0 2 0
3 Spain 785 3 0 3 0
5 Netherlands 733 4 -1 4 -1
5 Turkey 733 7 2 8 3
8 Germany 726 9 1 12 4
10 Italy 723 11 1 10 0
11 Czech Republic 719 10 -1 6 -5
13 England 711 12 -1 8 -5
14 Republic of Ireland 705 15 1 14 0
15 Denmark 696 14 -1 13 -2
17 Belgium 670 17 0 16 -1
18 Sweden 667 21 3 19 1
20 Croatia 662 25 5 20 0
22 Portugal 661 20 -2 17 -5
26 Poland 652 29 3 25 -1
31 Romania 645 23 -8 27 -4
31 Russia 645 30 -1 24 -7
35 Greece 627 34 -1 30 -5
36 Norway 616 36 0 42 6
40 Bulgaria 609 38 -2 34 -6
41 Slovenia 608 39 -2 31 -10
42 Finland 586 42 0 40 -2
44 Serbia and Montenegro 581 45 1 41 -3
47 Switzerland 576 47 0 44 -3
53 Latvia 551 52 -1 51 -2
55 Scotland 547 63 8 54 -1
57 Israel 546 57 0 51 -6
60 Wales 543 66 6 66 6
61 Slovakia 542 54 -7 50 -11
64 Bosnia-Herzegovina 529 61 -3 59 -5
65 Iceland 527 56 -9 58 -7
70 Austria 524 73 3 67 -3
71 Ukraine 523 65 -6 60 -11
74 Hungary 519 68 -6 72 -2
75 Estonia 517 71 -4 68 -7
86 Belarus 502 82 -4 90 4
91 Albania 481 91 0 89 -2
93 FYR Macedonia 474 90 -3 92 -1
102 Cyprus 445 97 -5 97 -5
102 Georgia 445 99 -3 93 -9
108 Moldova 425 104 -4 106 -2
110 Lithuania 421 108 -2 101 -9
110 Northern Ireland 421 114 4 122 12
112 Azerbaijan 417 116 4 119 7
116 Armenia 408 112 -4 113 -3
131 Malta 361 129 -2 129 -2
134 Faroe Islands 350 131 -3 126 -8
140 Kazakhstan 317 136 -4 136 -4
148 Andorra 296 146 -2 147 -1
152 Liechtenstein 277 150 -2 148 -4
156 Luxembourg 254 155 -1 153 -3
167 San Marino 217 165 -2 162 -5


Northern Ireland are of course a laugh.

But in general, what do you think of the hypothesis?

Big Ears

Ukraine 71 :eek: . they arent that bad .

redspider

Ukraine:

Two 0-0 draws with N.Ireland will reduce any teams ranking!


France (FRA) 1:0 ( 0 : 0 ) Ukraine (UKR)
Ukraine (UKR) 1:1 ( 1 : 0 ) Slovakia (SVK)
FYR Macedonia (MKD) 1:0 ( 1 : 0 ) Ukraine (UKR)
Libya (LBY) 1:1 ( 0 : 1 ) Ukraine (UKR)
Ukraine (UKR) 0:0 FYR Macedonia (MKD)
Spain (ESP) 2:1 ( 0 : 0 ) Ukraine (UKR)
Ukraine (UKR) 0:0 Northern Ireland (NIR)
Ukraine (UKR) 0:2 ( 0 : 1 ) Romania (ROM)
Greece (GRE) 1:0 ( 0 : 0 ) Ukraine (UKR)
Ukraine (UKR) 4:3 ( 1 : 1 ) Armenia (ARM)
Denmark (DEN) 1:0 ( 1 : 0 ) Ukraine (UKR)
Ukraine (UKR) 1:0 ( 0 : 0 ) Latvia (LVA)
Ukraine (UKR) 2:2 ( 1 : 0 ) Spain (ESP)
Turkey (TUR) 0:0 Ukraine (UKR)
Slovakia (SVK) 1:1 ( 0 : 0 ) Ukraine (UKR)
Northern Ireland (NIR) 0:0 Ukraine (UKR)

(edit: tidied up)

knobbles

Originally posted by eirebhoy

Poland, Romania, Norway.

referring to world top 20, not the euro one i listed above

knobbles

Originally posted by redspider
Ukraine:

Two 0-0 draws with N.Ireland will reduce any teams ranking!

yeah ,they were very unlucky not to qualify for the euro 2000 but have been very ordinary since then

euro 2000

Big Ears

U have to feel sorry for Shevshenko he was top scorer in qualifying for the 2002 World Cup with 10 goals yet Ukraine didnt qualify .

A draw with Armenia and a draw with Iceland let them down in 2000 .

Unlucky not to qualify but it was an easy group .

knobbles

didnt know shev was top scorer then. pity alright, looks as if he'll never grace a major championship with ukraine.

btw, iceland were no pushovers 5 years ago. They were on fire!!! But they too have gone downhill since.

Guy:Incognito

have to agree with eirbhoy, point for friendlies is ridiculous, teams very rarely play to their potential in friendlies, escpeially if they have a big match or tournament coming up. Germany are by no means a great team at the min but losing 5-1 or whatever it was in a friendly to Romania isnt a reflection on how good they are. In a competitive game the czechs would have decent odds against us and wouldnt be expected to be beaten. Same with Holland to a lesser extent.


Does anyone know if its a set number of points for a win or does it depend on the team ur playing, i mean if Ireland kept playing STKitts & Nevis every 2nd week for instance and hammering them would we be ranked no1? Or does the win against Holland count for more than beating a crap team.

Big Ears

Playing every week yes , playing 9 times a tear like most internationel sides no . Rankings do depend on the opposition u beat/Draw

eirebhoy

Originally posted by Stekelly
Does anyone know if its a set number of points for a win or does it depend on the team ur playing, i mean if Ireland kept playing STKitts & Nevis every 2nd week for instance and hammering them would we be ranked no1? Or does the win against Holland count for more than beating a crap team.

Lots of factors are taken into account when calculating the rankings.

http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/fifaranking.html

Big Ears

The following are NOT considered
- U17, U20 or U23 (olympic) matches of any kind
- Womens matches
- Indoor matches (If anyone asks me about the Silverdome I will personally
send them 15 copies of the termcap and make them Vinnie Jones' training
partner. Besides I think they mean futsal games)

Does this mean that an U21 sides internationel performance affects the senior side ?

eirebhoy

Originally posted by Big Ears
Does this mean that an U21 sides internationel performance affects the senior side ?

Good question and one I'd love to know the answer of. Its more than likely a mistake though.

redspider

A week is a long time in politics but a few days is even longer in football. The original hypothesis was that the FIFA rankings are largely accurate *within* a federation, and I still think they are. However, such is the unpredictability of football, lower teams can easily knock-out higher teams. The table now looks like this:

.... out - 2 France
.... out - 3 Spain
5 Netherlands
.... out - 8 Germany
.... out - 10 Italy
11 Czech Republic
.... out - 13 England
.... dnq (14 Republic of Ireland)
.... out - 15 Denmark
... dnq (17 Belgium)
.... out - 18 Sweden
.... out - 20 Croatia
22 Portugal
.... out - 31 Russia
35 Greece
.... out - 40 Bulgaria
.... out - 47 Switzerland
.... out - 53 Latvia


ok, as Portugal are the host nation, their performance is raised above normal and this is semi-expected. Greece can be taken to be a team on the rise and are doing what other teams have done in previous touranemnts and producing a once-off special, such as Bulgaria, Poland, Turkey, etc.

At least with NL and CZ remaining there are two out of the top-6 still in the competition. But I guess this raises a number of questions:

Are tournaments in the modern era less predictable than in years gone by? For example, the wc2002 was criticised because many of the teams of quality got knocked out early and it was seen as a poor tournament as a result. So, with ec2004 showing something similar, is this a new pattern?


In terms of the issue of friendlies being a waste of time, I agree that the current situation is poor. One possible solution is to use say 5 random friendlies a year (the FIFA points system) as the sole means of criteria for seeding in qualification groups. That would mean that every friendly would count fvor some thing and gone are the days of experimentation (without cost!).

knobbles

Originally posted by redspider
Greece can be taken to be a team on the rise and are doing what other teams have done in previous touranemnts and producing a once-off special, such as Bulgaria, Poland, Turkey, etc.

yeah there's always one team isn't there?
denmark 92, bulgaria 94, czech 96, croatia 98, turkey 02, greece 04.
( sorry, how did poland get in there :ninja: )

Originally posted by redspider
Are tournaments in the modern era less predictable than in years gone by? For example, the wc2002 was criticised because many of the teams of quality got knocked out early and it was seen as a poor tournament as a result. So, with ec2004 showing something similar, is this a new pattern?

definately. so many "big" teams have failed early on in the last 2 tournaments, more so than ever before. Are players just too knackered at the end of the season? Has the the importance of the Champions League on top of domestic football affected players performances and fitness?

Greece did well to qualify but i can't believe Portugal, Spain and France all failed to beat them. I thought Italy's and Spain's performances were both typical - either had the potential to be champions but wasted it. I was sure France would get their act together against Greece. Fair play to Greece, but we all would have been more excited with A Czech-France semi. You want the big names in there for the big games.


Won't be long before another small nation like Denmark 92 wins one of these tournaments, even the next World Cup will be be wide open with a weak host nation in Germany and, apart from Pele & Brazil in '58, a European team has always won a Wold Cup based in Europe.

Feck Italy and co., i'm going each way on Ireland for Germany 2006 :rolleyes: