FIFA rankings - why they are important and how to beat the system

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Here's the official FIFA ranking.  If the leaked WCQ format is indeed true then making top 6 is vital for seeding.  This is where the French Guiana match really f###s us.  I'm actually predicting Curacao will be 6th in CONCACAF after the March FIFA window.  We won't get points against French Guiana, El Salvador will likely lose to Jamaica, and Panama has been rubbish since the World Cup. 

 

[hamiltonfan]

Would

1 hour ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

Here's the official FIFA ranking.  If the leaked WCQ format is indeed true then making top 6 is vital for seeding.  This is where the French Guiana match really f###s us.  I'm actually predicting Curacao will be 6th in CONCACAF after the March FIFA window.  We won't get points against French Guiana, El Salvador will likely lose to Jamaica, and Panama has been rubbish since the World Cup. 

 

Would we be able to mitigate unfavorable circumstances (no points from FG match resulting in us outside of Top 6) with a friendly or two scheduled before XX date?

What date or month would we have to have friendlies played by to impact our FIFA ranks for WCQ? 

How does the Gold Cup come into play? too late? 

[Bertuzzi44]

ELO has us at 68.

Top-50 here we come?...

[CanadianSoccerFan]

2 hours ago, hamiltonfan said:

Would

Would we be able to mitigate unfavorable circumstances (no points from FG match resulting in us outside of Top 6) with a friendly or two scheduled before XX date?

What date or month would we have to have friendlies played by to impact our FIFA ranks for WCQ? 

How does the Gold Cup come into play? too late? 

We could.  FIFA fixed the ranking calculation flaw that previously punished teams for playing (and winning) friendlies.  

The 2022 qualifying draw is scheduled on the FIFA calendar for "July 2019" with no specific date given.  Gold Cup runs June 15th to July 7th and FIFA usually releases the rankings near the end of each month.  We can only speculate on where the ranking cutoff will be for WCQ seeding.  I still remember the days when Jack Warner reached back 8 months to get the most recent ranking in which Trinidad got into pot B.  

[PhillyJawn-guy]

Just pass the USA in the next 5 years both in FIFA and Elo rankings. Canada has looked better than the US since 2017.

[Bison44]

11 hours ago, PhillyJawn-guy said:

Just pass the USA in the next 5 years both in FIFA and Elo rankings. Canada has looked better than the US since 2017.

They beat Mexico since then...what has Canada done?  Our awe inspiring friendly win against New Zealand??  We cant even get games against top teams like England, France, Brazil etc.  Things are looking up but give your head a shake and if all you want to do is bitch about USA/MLS go back to the american boards eh??  

[PhillyJawn-guy]

Beating a 10-man Mexico B/C team isn't a big deal. Canada could do it too if you just schedule a friendly.

Edited December 2, 2018 by PhillyJawn-guy

[BenFisk'sBiggestFan]

Let's just beat French Guiana first... I'll get high on Canada once we actually win an important game.

[Kent]

For the last World Cup Qualifying they used the rankings from August 2014, meaning right after the previous World Cup. Honestly I think that makes the most sense. So likely our rankings hasn’t mattered for the past few months, and won’t for another 8 years (short of seeding in the 2022 World Cup proper if we qualify).

[Bertuzzi44]

The troll-realization reaction time on this forum is surprisingly low 

[ardsa]

On 12/1/2018 at 5:49 PM, CanadianSoccerFan said:

Here's the official FIFA ranking.  If the leaked WCQ format is indeed true then making top 6 is vital for seeding.  This is where the French Guiana match really f###s us.  I'm actually predicting Curacao will be 6th in CONCACAF after the March FIFA window.  We won't get points against French Guiana, El Salvador will likely lose to Jamaica, and Panama has been rubbish since the World Cup. 

 

I think this is a case of over thinking without looking at the numbers. The Nations League qualifiers have a relatively low "I score" (importance of match).See procedures:  ttps://img.fifa.com/image/upload/edbm045h0udbwkqew35a.pdf

These matches are being scored with an I of 15 (Group phase matches of Nations League competitions) not an I of 25 (Qualification matches for Confederations final competitions and for FIFA World Cup final competitions). It would be an interseting question for CONCACAF why these games are not scored with and I of 25.

If you look back over the last 3 games Canada has gained only 3 or 4 points per match. Curacao is 8 points back. We are not being passed in 1 game.

If Curacao win against Antigua and Barbuda they will be sitting at 1311 points. Canada is already at 1314.

edit: just to be fair, Curacao play Guadeloupe last month and got 0 points for that game.

In a game with an I of 15, if you win an even match you get 7.5 points. If the worst team in the world beat the best (854 point to 1727 points) they would only gain 14.5 points.

The new ranking system never drops games after x number of years (4 under the previous system). Our bad results from the past are not being erased any more. This is a long haul for Canada. We need Gold Cup points (I of 35 or 40) to make up an serious ground on the top 6 of CONCACAF.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2018 by ardsa

[Guest]

On 12/2/2018 at 12:50 PM, Bison44 said:

They beat Mexico since then...what has Canada done?  Our awe inspiring friendly win against New Zealand??  We cant even get games against top teams like England, France, Brazil etc.  Things are looking up but give your head a shake and if all you want to do is bitch about USA/MLS go back to the american boards eh??  

just block him like all the other trolls. Not worth wasting your time on the idiotic comments

[SkuseisLoose]

Does anyone know when the wcq format will be released.

[jtpc]

I was going to check the CONCACAF rankings today since all of our Gold Cup matches would be reflected in the July 1st update, but the page I had bookmarked for the men's national team rankings now gives you a 404 error message. When you click on the rankings drop down menu, men's national team isn't even one of the choices. 

I'm not sure if the latest CONCACAF rankings determine anything for the not yet announced WCQ format for 2022, but if they do determine something, I'll admit that my first thought was a cynical one: They've pulled the rankings off the website so that they can make up whatever WCQ format they want. 😂

[jtpc]

Had to do some serious digging to find this thread! Page 21 on the forum! 😂

The next FIFA ranking update will be on April 7th.

Even though our ranking points won't mean a whole lot in the short-term, it feels great to be earning points again from the March window. Hopefully we can keep adding to our point total in June with 4 more wins (Aruba, Suriname, Group E winner x 2) and advance to the Octagonal.

The great news is: It looks like the 12-point gap El Salvador had on us for 6th in CONCACAF is gone, thanks to their draw with Montserrat. 😀

If the website I've been checking is correct, we're going to earn around 8.98 points from this window (5.19 for defeating Bermuda and 3.79 for defeating Cayman Islands). We started this month around 1,332 points, so that should give us about 1,341 points with the next update.

El Salvador began the month with 1,344. They gained 5.51 for defeating Grenada, but lost 8.39 for drawing Montserrat (a net loss of 2.88), which puts them around 1,341 as well.

Let's keep this upward trend going through June and set our sights on Honduras for 5th in the region. Honduras probably won't be playing 4 matches in June like us, and any matches they do play, certainly won't be at the 25 multiplier that WCQ matches are calculated at. Let's go CanMNT! 🙌 😀

Edited April 7, 2021 by jtpc

[Kent]

1 hour ago, jtpc said:

Let's keep this upward trend going through June and set our sights on Honduras for 5th in the region. Honduras probably won't be playing 4 matches in June like us, and any matches they do play, certainly won't be at the 25 multiplier that WCQ matches are calculated at. Let's go CanMNT! 🙌 😀

You are half right about Honduras. They aren't likely to be playing 4 matches, but they will have 2 games at 25 multiplier. They have semi finals and first/3rd place match in Nations League.

[Kent]

The new CONCACAF Rankings are out. Canada passed Jamaica to move into 5th. I looked at the points gained and lost by teams in our group. I had thought that combined they would add up to 0, but there are 3 points lost I can't explain. Bermuda had an earlier camp so I thought maybe they played a friendly or two, but I didn't find anything. So I decided to go back to the source to confirm my belief that the amount of points won by one team is equal to the amount of points lost by the other. But, of course the link to their methodology is dead!

https://concacaf-cloudinary.corebine.com/concacaf-production/image/upload/v1535044241/concacaf-prod/assets/Concacaf_Men_s_National_Team_Ranking_Overview.pdf

Now I can't find anything on it. CONCACAF's website is so frustrating. They don't keep results from past games, and apparently not the ranking procedure either. It's like everything expires after a few weeks on that website.

I might still take a crack at figuring out how to predict ranking changes based on results (so figure out an approximation for that mysterious "Expected result of the match" factor. I'm not certain I can come up with anything good though.

[Shway]

Isn’t Concacaf rankings....meaningless?

[Kent]

19 minutes ago, Shway said:

Isn’t Concacaf rankings....meaningless?

It's used for Gold Cup draws (but the 2021 draw has already happened) and Nations League draws. So getting top 4 would be good to avoid USA and Mexico in our groups in those competitions.

[CanadaFan123]

1 hour ago, Kent said:

It's used for Gold Cup draws (but the 2021 draw has already happened) and Nations League draws. So getting top 4 would be good to avoid USA and Mexico in our groups in those competitions.

Call me crazy but I think it’s better to get USA or Mexico in your group. You avoid playing either of them in QF. 

[archer21]

1 hour ago, CanadaFan123 said:

Call me crazy but I think it’s better to get USA or Mexico in your group. You avoid playing either of them in QF. 

If you win your group, you avoid them too, don’t you?

[Kent]

1 hour ago, CanadaFan123 said:

Call me crazy but I think it’s better to get USA or Mexico in your group. You avoid playing either of them in QF. 

OK, I will oblige. You are crazy. As archer21 said, if you are a top 4 seed, you've greatly increased your chances of winning the group, which helps your chances a lot in the quarter finals. If USA and Mexico win their groups as well, you won't be facing them in the quarters.

[Shway]

So at this rate, it will benefit us for the 2023 Gold Cup?

[CanadaFan123]

6 hours ago, archer21 said:

If you win your group, you avoid them too, don’t you?

Not necessarily, whereas you avoid them 100% if in the same group and get a chance to test yourself against them. 
 

You likely also have a straight route to the final without playing the other one if you finish 1st. 

[Canadamnt]

Canada has been screwed over due to some teams not being a part of fifa. Therefore no fifa points from those games. Since 2017 Canada has played a quarter of their games against these teams in gold cup/nations league with the likes of French Guiana and Martinique. All of them have been wins for Canada. It doesn’t get any better as we play Martinique again in this years gold cup.