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

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

5 minutes ago, narduch said:

This is amazing. I hope it happens.

The scenario that dreams are made of!

[Free kick]

1 hour ago, umpiredice said:

It's quite plausible that the US could lose all three of those matches.  Costa Rica and Panama have everything to fight for.

Just for fun I ran a simulation of the final three rounds.  These were my scores:

Costa Rica	1	1	Canada
Panama	2	0	Honduras
Jamaica	1	1	El Salvador
Mexico	2	1	United States
Canada	3	0	Jamaica
Honduras	0	3	Mexico
El Salvador	1	2	Costa Rica
United States	1	2	Panama
Panama	1	1	Canada
Jamaica	3	2	Honduras
Mexico	4	0	El Salvador
Costa Rica	2	0	United States

 

And this is the table they produced:

	P	W	D	L	F	A	+/-	Pts
Canada	14	8	6	0	24	7	17	30
Mexico	14	9	3	2	23	9	14	30
Panama	14	7	3	4	19	15	4	24
Costa Rica	14	6	5	3	13	9	4	23
United States	14	6	3	5	18	13	5	21
Jamaica	14	2	5	7	13	22	-9	11
El Salvador	14	2	4	8	8	20	-12	10
Honduras	14	0	3	11	7	30	-23	3

It could happen, right?

Eleven of the twelve scenarios are plausible and not far reaching at all.   Except the bolded one.  I cant see the US losing at home to Panama.  Panama IMHO is just not that good   (based on what we have seen) to win an away game against the US and score two goals to boot.   The home record of the Americans is equal to ours at 5-1-0 and the Panamanian away record is 2-0-4 with only points being the away wins against Jam and Hon early in the cycle.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Free kick

[gigi riva]

For Canada just keep getting as many points you can in the matches you play 

[eramosat]

14 hours ago, umpiredice said:

It's quite plausible that the US could lose all three of those matches.  Costa Rica and Panama have everything to fight for.

Just for fun I ran a simulation of the final three rounds.  These were my scores:

Costa Rica	1	1	Canada
Panama	2	0	Honduras
Jamaica	1	1	El Salvador
Mexico	2	1	United States
Canada	3	0	Jamaica
Honduras	0	3	Mexico
El Salvador	1	2	Costa Rica
United States	1	2	Panama
Panama	1	1	Canada
Jamaica	3	2	Honduras
Mexico	4	0	El Salvador
Costa Rica	2	0	United States

 

And this is the table they produced:

	P	W	D	L	F	A	+/-	Pts
Canada	14	8	6	0	24	7	17	30
Mexico	14	9	3	2	23	9	14	30
Panama	14	7	3	4	19	15	4	24
Costa Rica	14	6	5	3	13	9	4	23
United States	14	6	3	5	18	13	5	21
Jamaica	14	2	5	7	13	22	-9	11
El Salvador	14	2	4	8	8	20	-12	10
Honduras	14	0	3	11	7	30	-23	3

It could happen, right?

I guess I greatly underestimated the board's desire for USA to fail here?  I myself was way more happy to not face a UEFA side in the World Cup.

Edited February 22, 2022 by eramosat
error

[Yoginess]

6 hours ago, eramosat said:

I guess I greatly underestimated the board's desire for USA to fail here?  I myself was way more happy to not face a UEFA side in the World Cup.

I’d rather face a UEFA nation. We get to play the US all the time. And the US are better than a lot of World Cup teams, let’s not get too down on them. 

[umpiredice]

20 hours ago, Free kick said:

Eleven of the twelve scenarios are plausible and not far reaching at all.   Except the bolded one.  I cant see the US losing at home to Panama.  Panama IMHO is just not that good   (based on what we have seen) to win an away game against the US and score two goals to boot.   The home record of the Americans is equal to ours at 5-1-0 and the Panamanian away record is 2-0-4 with only points being the away wins against Jam and Hon early in the cycle.

Totally agree, Panama almost certainly won't win in the US.  But as I said in my original post - "just for fun"!  And who knows?  Upsets happen.

[Free kick]

57 minutes ago, Yoginess said:

I’d rather face a UEFA nation. We get to play the US all the time. And the US are better than a lot of World Cup teams, let’s not get too down on them. 

Also.  there is no way to avoid a UEFA nation.   There are 14 that qualify for the WC and there has to be at least one (a maximum of two) in each group.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

40 minutes ago, Free kick said:

Also.  there is no way to avoid a UEFA nation.   There are 14 that qualify for the WC and there has to be at least one (a maximum of two) in each group.

They only get 13.  They've had 14 in years they host.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

The US just lost McKennie to a fractured foot.  He was by far their best player in recent games.

 

[RS]

40 minutes ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

The US just lost McKennie to a fractured foot.  He was by far their best player in recent games.

 

And Gio Reyna got injured, again.

[Shway]

47 minutes ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

The US just lost McKennie to a fractured foot.  He was by far their best player in recent games.

 

Easily their best player. Pulisic is overhype. This is a massive loss, but they have guys to replace him. 

Suddenly @umpiredice "random" simulation could come true. 

[Califax]

I like ripping on the states because it’s Going to be a nice rivalry for the next decade. But I still prefer them to pretty much every other team of the octo.

I don’t mind Costa Rica, for another month at least. But fuck Panama forever. I hope we can do to them in our final game, what the US did to them in 2014 qualifying. 
 

[narduch]

The USA collapsing actually helps out our Pot 3 chances.

[footballfreak]

On 2/21/2022 at 1:45 PM, Free kick said:

Eleven of the twelve scenarios are plausible and not far reaching at all.   Except the bolded one.  I cant see the US losing at home to Panama.  Panama IMHO is just not that good   (based on what we have seen) to win an away game against the US and score two goals to boot.   The home record of the Americans is equal to ours at 5-1-0 and the Panamanian away record is 2-0-4 with only points being the away wins against Jam and Hon early in the cycle.

Worth noting that those 11 plausible scores with Panama-US changed to a draw (very plausible) still produces a table where the US finish 5th. Panama and Costa Rica would go down to goal difference for the automatic spot.

[Unnamed Trialist]

10 hours ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

The US just lost McKennie to a fractured foot.  He was by far their best player in recent games.

I think they are pretty devasted, that is a big loss, together with Reyna not getting back. 

It means nothing if we don't take points off Costa Rica, if we do, they should be fine.

[Ally McCoist]

Remember when people thought there's no way the US could lose to T&T?

[eramosat]

On 1/31/2022 at 8:39 PM, CanadianSoccerFan said:

No, the previous math prioritized recency.  It used to be the average of your points per game over a 4 year period with a weighting towards the most recent years.  It could produce massive swings like Wales going from #117 in pot 6 to ranked 8th and bumping Italy out of pot 1.  This swing angered FIFA and played a large part in the decision to change.  They don't want swings, they want the status quo.

With the current math, the points never fall off due to time, they only fall off from results.  The problem is that the point values are too low so nobody moves.  Teams generally stay in their immediate vicinity for eternity.  

Since you wrote this, I have watched to see how it applies.  And now more than ever, I understand that in order for any team, but more so any federation to collectively improve in FIFA rankings...you have to steal points from others, and confederation-wise, in international competitions.  Which are so few and far between, and represent such a small percentage of the FIFA points available to rankings as to be marginal.

So unless the CONCACAF nations steal points from the others...Canada can only ever go so high, even if they surpass Costa Rica, US and Mexico.  To basically get as high as Mexico has ever gotten.  Similar situations for AFC and CAF...very tough to push their top ranked teams any higher than their current top ranked teams.  And World Cup is one of the only times there's an opportunity to do so.

[Kent]

1 hour ago, eramosat said:

Since you wrote this, I have watched to see how it applies.  And now more than ever, I understand that in order for any team, but more so any federation to collectively improve in FIFA rankings...you have to steal points from others, and confederation-wise, in international competitions.  Which are so few and far between, and represent such a small percentage of the FIFA points available to rankings as to be marginal.

So unless the CONCACAF nations steal points from the others...Canada can only ever go so high, even if they surpass Costa Rica, US and Mexico.  To basically get as high as Mexico has ever gotten.  Similar situations for AFC and CAF...very tough to push their top ranked teams any higher than their current top ranked teams.  And World Cup is one of the only times there's an opportunity to do so.

I've been thinking about this too. With Nations League, the Gold Cup, and World Cup Qualifying, really we are just shuffling points around within CONCACAF. Every 4 years we get 3 or 4 teams to try to steal some points from other confederations and bring them back home to CONCACAF to share. I'm not smart enough, but I wonder if there is an inherent advantage for UEFA having so many teams, or if it's a wash since if they didn't perform well they would be losing points to everyone else.

At any rate, assuming we get a spot in 2026 automatically for hosting, and that we are in Pot 1 for the same reason, the FIFA rankings officially don't matter going forward until after the 2026 World Cup. I am also assuming CONCACAF rankings will continue to be used for the Gold Cup and Nations League.

[eramosat]

1 hour ago, Kent said:

I've been thinking about this too. With Nations League, the Gold Cup, and World Cup Qualifying, really we are just shuffling points around within CONCACAF. Every 4 years we get 3 or 4 teams to try to steal some points from other confederations and bring them back home to CONCACAF to share. I'm not smart enough, but I wonder if there is an inherent advantage for UEFA having so many teams, or if it's a wash since if they didn't perform well they would be losing points to everyone else.

At any rate, assuming we get a spot in 2026 automatically for hosting, and that we are in Pot 1 for the same reason, the FIFA rankings officially don't matter going forward until after the 2026 World Cup. I am also assuming CONCACAF rankings will continue to be used for the Gold Cup and Nations League.

Bingo.

I think the law of averages suggests every confederation will retain it's "base" amount of points, and simply re-allocate it to its members based on frequent confederation play.  UEFA for sure has an advantage...so many more competitive teams with so much more points than any other confederation means a broader distribution, so that any single catastrophe (say, Iceland?) going bad is quickly replaced by another suitable candidate (say...whomever?).  Even Italy could fall out of the top 100, and some UEFA nation(s) would happily absorb their points.  They won't be given to anyone except another UEFA nation.  Even losing in knockout in World Cup, you lose no points....

As you say...it won't matter that much for a while for Canada.  It is what it is, I can still enjoy the Canada football with no issues whatsover.  But in another 30 years?  Might be time for a different method.

[Kent]

Here's a small table.

Now for the essay... I apologize.

You may be wondering, "What the hell is this?". We have had the current FIFA ranking system since August of 2018. I summed up the total ranking points for each country in a given confederation, for each month the rankings came out since August 2018. A reminder that in the majority of games (all friendlies, qualifiers, group stage games of the World Cup, continental championship, or nations league) the number of points one team gains is balanced out perfectly with the number of points the other team loses. So 2 teams from the same confederation playing a friendly won't grow the pool of points available to that confederation. But beating a team from another confederation will take points out of the opposing confederation's pool of points, and bring it into your own. For example if CAF had 10,000 total points and CONCACAF has 10,000 total points, but then Mexico beats Nigeria in a friendly and gains, let's say 5 points, now CAF will have 9,995 total points, and CONCACAF will have 10,005 total points. So to raise the ranking of some teams in a confederation without pulling down others in the confederation, you need to get results outside of your own confederation.

Under the "Overall" column is shown how many more points the confederation has now than they did in August 2018.

Under the "Championship" column, it shows the gain in points the confederation got during the confederation Championship (so the Euros, Gold Cup, African Cup of Nations, Copa America, Asian Cup, and whatever the Oceania championship is called, I forget) and also Nations League knockout round (for CONCACAF and UEFA). The reason for the big numbers in this column is because the part I left out above is that in knockout rounds the losing team doesn't lose points. So the winner gains points, but the loser doesn't lose points, so it grows the pool of points for a confederation. So things that can affect the Championship column are the frequency of the championship (Gold Cup every 2 years, Euro every 4 years for example), the size of the knockout round (Gold Cup starts with quarter finals, Euro starts with R16, so there are more games to strictly gain points in 1 Euro than in 1 Gold Cup), and of course upsets are worth more points than the favourite winning.

Under the "Other" column is the difference between "Overall" and "Championship". Remember that these rankings have been used since just after the last World Cup, so "Other" as far as I can tell is just based on inter-confederation friendlies*. I put an asterisk next to "friendlies" because Qatar played in the Gold Cup and during that month they gained 57 ranking points (at CONCACAF's expense). I included that month in "Other" but if we include Qatar's points from the Gold Cup (and maybe some friendlies as well?) in the Championship column then we end up with AFC joining CONCACAF in having a negative "Other" column.

So is there anything to learn from this? Well the way I see it is the "Championship" column is basically about inherent advantage or gaming the system (for example if CONCACAF or CAF decided to have 1 confederation championship instead of 2 per 4 year cycle, they would gain fewer ranking points which would hurt their chances in the World Cup). The "Overall" column is, very, very, generally speaking without doing some crazy analysis, showing if a confederation is better than their current pool of points suggests. For example, if 2 equally ranked teams from different confederations played each other, the winner of the game might be from the stronger confederation, but they lose more games due to being in a tougher confederation.

Is there a way to maximize points? For starters, don't invite teams from outside our confederation into the Gold Cup (but if Asia returns the favour for Mexico, USA, and Canada as we will host the 2026 World Cup, hopefully we can steal points from AFC). I have also previously thought the Nations League should really have semis + finals in all 3 leagues. There are minnows in CONCACAF that don't have any chance to make it to a Gold Cup let alone a World Cup, but if they could be League C champions, that would be an achievement to celebrate. If CONCACAF decided to have those games and FIFA continues to let the losers from those knockout games to keep their ranking points, then that would be a way to grow the pool of points as well. Other than those things, win your inter-confederation friendlies and perform well in the World Cup!

 

Edited May 28, 2022 by Kent
Fixed a mistake in the table.

[Kent]

I just corrected UEFA's row in the comment above. I forgot to include Nations League knockout rounds in the Championship column instead of Other. I'm not sure why the Other column doesn't sum to 0 (even if we subtract 57 points from Asia, it still doesn't work out). There may be other factors I am missing.

[Kent]

It's been pointed out to me that the Arab Cup could explain (at least partially) the discrepancy in the Other column. That's a tournament I hadn't considered. It has teams from Africa as well as Asia, so I don't think I can really put the results in the Championship column (for example, Asia lost points that month).

[Unnamed Trialist]

I re-read this and wonder if you could just do a summary for us again. 

I thought the point about having the GC every two years made sense. But what were the other main conclusions, I am not so good at grasping the ranking systems. 

[Kent]

2 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I re-read this and wonder if you could just do a summary for us again. 

I thought the point about having the GC every two years made sense. But what were the other main conclusions, I am not so good at grasping the ranking systems. 

I guess the thought that sparked this little research was wondering if it was even possible for all 3 of Canada, USA, and Mexico to be pot 1 or 2 teams, since basically we have to take points from other CONCACAF teams, including each other. We kind of need more points in the CONCACAF pool to propel teams from the region forward.

Anyways, here are some bullets for things that could hypothetically grow a given confederation's total ranking points.

- more continental championships. 2 per 4 years is better than 1 every 4 years
- Nations League. If you don't have it, start it, without sacrificing another tournament
- expand on Nations League. Don't just have an A League playoff, do it for B, C, D, whatever levels you have. It would give lower ranked teams more points which then make wins against those teams more valuable for the higher ranked teams
- don't have guest teams from other confederations in your competitions (unless you can beat them I suppose). Qatar for example, took points away from CONCACAF in the last Gold Cup. But maybe we would benefit from having San Marino play with us.
- win your friendlies against out of confederation teams.
- kick some ass at the World Cup!

According to my table, it looks like CONCACAF has terrible results with friendlies. I haven't paid much attention to them, but perhaps it's because Mexico and USA go for glamour games rather than finding beatable opponents? Probably CONCACAF teams play a lot against CONMEBOL teams as well, which is tough. Asia is far but they would have teams that would be more on our level (generally speaking).

[Unnamed Trialist]

8 hours ago, Kent said:

I guess the thought that sparked this little research was wondering if it was even possible for all 3 of Canada, USA, and Mexico to be pot 1 or 2 teams, since basically we have to take points from other CONCACAF teams, including each other. We kind of need more points in the CONCACAF pool to propel teams from the region forward.

Anyways, here are some bullets for things that could hypothetically grow a given confederation's total ranking points.

- more continental championships. 2 per 4 years is better than 1 every 4 years
- Nations League. If you don't have it, start it, without sacrificing another tournament
- expand on Nations League. Don't just have an A League playoff, do it for B, C, D, whatever levels you have. It would give lower ranked teams more points which then make wins against those teams more valuable for the higher ranked teams
- don't have guest teams from other confederations in your competitions (unless you can beat them I suppose). Qatar for example, took points away from CONCACAF in the last Gold Cup. But maybe we would benefit from having San Marino play with us.
- win your friendlies against out of confederation teams.
- kick some ass at the World Cup!

According to my table, it looks like CONCACAF has terrible results with friendlies. I haven't paid much attention to them, but perhaps it's because Mexico and USA go for glamour games rather than finding beatable opponents? Probably CONCACAF teams play a lot against CONMEBOL teams as well, which is tough. Asia is far but they would have teams that would be more on our level (generally speaking).

Thanks, very good analysis and I get your points. The idea that we should try to drive a broader core of Concacaf nations higher up into the rankings is quite interesting, never thought about that before. 

I have posted that I thought if a third team, or fourth even, could win the Gold Cup, and now Nations League, with certain regularity, which would be logical (really the US and Mexico sharing it is abnormal, in a short tournament surprises should happen), then we would see those 4 teams in the top 25-30 perhaps. Maybe not seeing top 10 teams, but from 10-30. Which would give us pot 2 and 3 teams.