New Fifa Rankings

Ruskie4Rent

FIFA have proudly unveiled their new World Rankings which reveal that Italy have climbed eleven places following their World Cup triumph, although Brazil still retain their interminable number one status.

Amid much fanfare, FIFA claim that their 'eagerly-awaited' post-World Cup rankings 'introduces major changes in points allocation and the assessment of the opposition's strength, but also makes such factors as the importance of the match and regional strength easier to understand.'

Despite the new criteria, the rankings do offer a few noteworthy anomalies, however.

They include:

* England's points rating climbing despite their dismal WC performances.

* Sweden slipping six places to 22nd. Paraguay, whom the Swedes knocked out en route to the group stages, duly move in the opposite direction, climbing fourteen places to 19th.

* Serbia and Montenegro rising eight places despite losing all three of their matches and returning home with a minus-eight goal difference.

* Saudi Arabia being demoted a whopping 47 places to 82nd in the world. Tunisia, with whom the Saudis drew at the World Cup, and whose final goal difference was superior by just one score, fall just eight places to 31st. Clearly, it was a significant goal.

* Portugal falling to eighth in the rankings despite beating England on the way to the WC semi-finals.

* Mexico falling fourteen places as punishment for the unforgivebale crime of being beaten in extra-time by third-ranked Argentina in the WC's best game.

* WC-absentees Uruguay climbing eight places to a lofty 14th and being ranked above Mexico.

* Guinea, a country which F365 wasn’t entirely aware played football, being ranked 24th in the world. Greece, reigning champions of a continent which produced six of the quarter-finalists and all four of the semi-finalists, are a distant 32nd.

* South Korea being demoted 27 places. Togo, who lost all three of their matches, including a defeat to the Koreans, rise fourteen places to be ranked ahead of the Koreans.

* Scotland being ranked inside the top 50.

http://www.football365.com/news/story_188573.shtml
Is it just randomly picked or what?

PeadarofAodh

That sounds like a complete joke!! Fifa really need to sit down and take a long look at how inaccurate their rating system is compared to the ATP rankings. Any team that doesn't qualify for a tournament can hardly rise in the rankings! I'd love to see the officials answer to a few of those movements.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

Bacchus

FIFA world rankings have always been a joke to be honest. I'v never found much use for them in judging how good a team is.

ghost26ie

i find the one about Guinea hilarious. Fifa are a joke.

The Rooster

The article is also a joke. Very poor journalism, but what would you expect, I suppose?

FIFA have completely re-invented the way they do the rankings. So saying teams went up or down in the rankings because of their world cup performance is just total nonsense. The old rankings have no bearing on the new rankings.

Not that I'm saying the rankings are good, but the article is purposefully misleading. And any team with Titi Camara and his brothers playing is bound to be as high as 24th in the world!

Vokes

Once more competitive games are played later in the year, the rankings should sort themselves out. Games such as Euro Qualifiers have more weighting now under the new rules, no?

Unearthly

has anyone got the full list of the Fifa rankings?

Ruu_Old

Unearthly wrote:

has anyone got the full list of the Fifa rankings?

Heres the top 10 anyway
(change of position in bracket)

1 Brazil (-)
2 Italy (+11)
3 Argentina (+6)
4 France (+4)
5 England (+5)
6 Netherlands (-3)
7 Spain (-2)
8 Portugal (-1)
9 Germany (+10)
10 Czech Republic (-8).

cruiserweight

Unearthly wrote:

has anyone got the full list of the Fifa rankings?

http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/index/0,2548,All-Jul-2006,00.html

Gileadi

from what i was reading at the weekend it no longer takes account of the results from the last 8 years but now only the last 4 years, and there was also some change to how games are weighted so its not a suprise to see teams like serbia and montenegro rise places after the world cup when more significance was given to their terrific qualifying form

Dustaz

As has been said, that Guinea one is an utter joke. Like the rankings themselves.

Ruu_Old

I suggest FIFA just put the country names in a hat and just pick them out, better method and probably more accurate than they are using now.

p.pete

There's a few noticable things, without looking into how they've changed the scoring structure.
-They're obviously giving more weight to the African Nataions Cup and African matches in general in preperation for the next world cup. Bit unfair given they seem to have a tournament every 2 years instead of 4. Classic example for me is Nigeria holding 10th without going to the WC, also Guinea seem to have made up a strange (maybe not?) amount of points
-USA and Mexico have both slipped, I think they had an easy ride of it before with a lot of easier games getting them points, so possibly that's been wiped now that '94 is a distant memory.
-

Ponster

Not being updated now but Elephant Rankings were always much better weighted than FIFA.

http://www.elerankings.com/frameworldfootball.htm

PeadarofAodh

ziggy67 wrote:

The rankings are & always have been a load of crap.

Judging by the last point in the quote i assume it was written by an Englishman. T***er

"England's points rating climbing despite their dismal WC performances"

Yess...written by an Englishman...

PHB

The article is stupid.
It thinks it is related solely to WC positions, when it's not. The new rankings are at least better than the last few rankings.

Pigman II

Shít! We're down 8. That really throws a spanner in the works.

Benedict XVI

I'll wait till Ireland jump 10 places in the rankings and then most people here will be telling us how accurate the rankings are

Pigman II

So you're gonna wait til we jump 20 places til you're finally satisfied?

evad_lhorg

Ruu wrote:

Heres the top 10 anyway
(change of position in bracket)

1 Brazil (-)
2 Italy (+11)
3 Argentina (+6)
4 France (+4)
5 England (+5)
6 Netherlands (-3)
7 Spain (-2)
8 Portugal (-1)
9 Germany (+10)
10 Czech Republic (-8).

it is more of a believable top 10 than the last one in all fairness

Ruskie4Rent

p.pete wrote:

There's a few noticable things, without looking into how they've changed the scoring structure.
-They're obviously giving more weight to the African Nataions Cup and African matches in general in preperation for the next world cup. Bit unfair given they seem to have a tournament every 2 years instead of 4. Classic example for me is Nigeria holding 10th without going to the WC, also Guinea seem to have made up a strange (maybe not?) amount of points
-USA and Mexico have both slipped, I think they had an easy ride of it before with a lot of easier games getting them points, so possibly that's been wiped now that '94 is a distant memory.
-

But then you have egypt down 12 after winning the bloody thing. It's either random or fixed, neither would surprise me when it comes to FIFA.
Actually here's the proceedure they follow http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/rank/procedures/0,2540,3,00.html

Atlas_IRL

England in 5th.....thats a joke they are terrible, all the other teams in the top 10 are better than them imo(maybe bar Czech)...

dont get me wrong they have brilliant players but i cant see how they warrent 5th best in the world

Kingp35

Portugal finish top of their qualifying group and to the world cup semi-finals and they drop places? What a load of rubbish.

I just ignore FIFA rankings now because they are just totally inaccurate and make no sense.

astrofool

As posted by Ruskie4Rent, it is based on a number of calculations that appear to make sense compared to the older methods. Given that its just started, there will of course be anomalies, but these will work themselves out over time.

What is completely silly is people who qualify a statement with "imo" when the rankings are using a bunch of stats and do not go near anyone's opinion at all, no matter how smelly England might be. As silly as those people are those that compare it to the previous system. It's like comparing Celsius to Farenheit and complaining that no way does 32C feel as cold as 32F. Labotomy performed already?

kinaldo

I wonder if Brazilians care that no other nation will ever likely come close to matching their record of 81 consecutive months at the top from July 1994 to April 2001, and occupying number one spot for 136 out of the 155 months FIFA world rankings have been in place?

Gwynston

One that certainly doesn't make sense is South Korea. I know them dropping 27 places is irrelevent as it's a new system, but surely their results should place them higher than 56th? :eek:

They didn't have a bad World Cup - beating Togo and drawing with France! And surely, having qualified for the WC means their results can't have been bad in recent years. How can Scotland, Uzbekistan and Canada be rated higher than them

I guess being only a 4-year score means their semi-final finish in the last world cup doesn't count any more?

Dustaz

PHB wrote:

The article is stupid.
It thinks it is related solely to WC positions, when it's not. The new rankings are at least better than the last few rankings.

The previous rankings were May 06. Of course the overriding factor in the new rankings is going to be the world cup.

Chakar

Here's the full list http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/index/0,2548,All-Jul-2006,00.html

patmac

FIFA rankings do not affect qualification seedings for the WC or euro champs these are based on the coefficient's of the last two qualification comps i.e
Ireland are based in the 4th round of seeding because of our poor performances in the qualification series for Euro 2004 and WC 2002 our record was :played 18 pts 25. Coefficient = 25/18 1.39 placing us 23rd (we were 15th before WC2006). This is the only one that effects Ireland. The other World rankings of note would be:
1st Italy
2nd France
3rd Germany
4th Portugal.
The last World Cup.

MisterAnarchy

Ireland are ranked 39th,just behind the superpower of football that is ...Honduras.
Pathetic

FatherTed

These rankings are more accurate:

http://www.eloratings.net/

GuanYin

You do realise that this is the same rankings that saw USA move 2 places after losing a friendly to germany (or was it denmark).

It seems it is weighted by federation so lots of poor teams do very well for merely playing a european team. As far as England making it 5th, well they did make it thru the WC unbeaten.

The Brigadier

psi wrote:

As far as England making it 5th, well they did make it thru the WC unbeaten.

People often forget that a game that is decided on penalties is counted as a draw by FIFA.

Royale with Cheese

The Brigadier wrote:

People often forget that a game that is decided on penalties is counted as a draw by FIFA.

Yeah, I desperately tried to explain this to some idiot united fan who claimed they'd beaten Arsenal that year x amount of times that year and had counted the charity shield win on penalties as one of them.

WhiteWashMan

Atlas_IRL wrote:

England in 5th.....thats a joke they are terrible, all the other teams in the top 10 are better than them imo(maybe bar Czech)...

dont get me wrong they have brilliant players but i cant see how they warrent 5th best in the world

i think youll find that it goes on the result of the game rather than the performance.

hell, brazil were crap all the way through til they got knocked out, and are still number one.

and bare in mind the article was written by F365, which is tongue in cheeck stuff at the best of times.
its hardly the sunday times journalism.

jesus, does everyone always have to take offence at everything if its not in line with their own thinking?

astrofool

Royale with Cheese wrote:

Yeah, I desperately tried to explain this to some idiot united fan who claimed they'd beaten Arsenal that year x amount of times that year and had counted the charity shield win on penalties as one of them.

Try telling a 'pool fan they didn't win the European cup then.

Pigman II

astrofool wrote:

Try telling a 'pool fan they didn't win the European cup then.

They didn't win the game but they undeniably won the cup.