and Greece?

just a few questions:
1.) how does England move up after that, and why isnt Italy in first now, I mean, they won right?
2.) why is it that if you get out in the round of 16 then your ranking goes down, but then if you get out in the final 8 your ranking goes up. I dotn think Mexico's ranking should go down and England's get better, especially becuase England had a much higher ranking then Mexico. If anything, shouldnt it be the otherway around?
3.) do you think its right that if i team qualifies for something as hard to geting as the World Cup and they are below the top 20 that if they do bad their ranking should not go down, of course one has to take into account that some good teams wont qualify becuase they are in harder regions, but still, why should Iran or Mexico drop, and England go up, it seems almost counter-intuitive to me.

I totally agree with nearly everything youve said, however the 3rd point about teams qualifying for the WC and still being below the top 20.

Let's take Trinidad and Tobago for example great achievement by them, but there is no chance they will qualify for any more tournaments because the two most successful players they've ever produced (Yorke 35, Latapy 37) aren't in their squad anymore. Plus they just aren't good enough too justify a top 20 place.

Yes, I mentioned this about some regions being harder then others and what not, and that should be aknowledged, but i dont think that if you qualify for the WC your ranking should go down unless you are in the top 20.

Fifa are a bunch of Arses England underperformed in exactly the same way they always do.

I've done a bit of research and found the exact way in which ths is all worked out

Prepare to sleep half way through, its a full 90 min session reading this

England's ascent to fourth in the Fifa world rankings, leapfrogging world champions Italy, has raised a few eyebrows.
How can victories against minnows Andorra, and the far-from-earth-shattering Macedonia, suddenly propel England into what is ostensibly a World Cup semi-finalist ranking or a European Championship final seeding? The answer cannot come from a drubbing of Greece, surely, as they failed to qualify for the World Cup, and it was only a friendly, after all. And how can Italy's poor form since winning the World Cup mean that they are now rated as being worse than Steve McClaren's men?


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Time, then, for a look at how the Fifa rankings actually work. A straw poll of people who live and breathe sport in general, and football in particular, revealed that no one actually had the slightest idea. So is the usual clamour to criticise them on the basis that they are fundamentally rubbish unfair and simply the result of poor education?
The rankings released after the World Cup were based for the first time on results from the previous four years - a change from eight years - as a response to criticism that ancient history had too much bearing on a team's ranking.

There are four basic criteria that affect a team's ranking - match result, match status, opposition strength and regional strength - with a weighting system that favours more recent results.

Match result

The first criterion is, rather sensibly, the result of the games. This is applied on the basis of a slightly modified league system, not unlike most leagues in the world.

Win without a penalty shoot-out: 3 points.
Win on penalties: 2 points.
Lose on penalties: 1 point.
Draw: 1 point.
Lose: 0 points.

So the basic measure has the appearance of common sense and allows for the difference between losing in the lottery of the penalty shoot-out. So far, so good.

Match status

A multiplier is then applied to the result according to the importance of the fixture, thus ensuring that competitive matches have more relevance to a team's ranking than friendlies.

World Cup finals match: 4.0x
Continental Cup (e.g. European Championship, African Cup of Nations): 3.0x
Confederation Cup: 3.0x
World Cup and continental cup qualifiers: 2.5x
Friendly matches: 1.0x

While it undoubtedly makes sense to weight in favour of competitive matches the values selected seem somewhat arbitrary. Can the Confederation Cup really be worth as much as the European Championships? Or is this Fifa attempting to boost the profile of its own rather unexciting tournament?

It also seems rather puzzling that a World Cup match should be worth more than a European Championship match when the opposition could be identical. Was it harder to beat France in the 1998 World Cup finals than it was to beat them in Euro 2000, simply because it was the World Cup? A possible answer could be that the World Cup, as the premier national team competition is likely to feature all the best teams. One of the other criteria introduces a bias based on opposition strength, so the answer cannot lie here. And that is without mentioning some of the lower-ranked teams from Asia, North and Central America or Africa that make up the World Cup line-up.

It does go some way to explaining the inflated rankings for the US and Mexico prior to the World Cup, though a regional measure attempts to address this.

Opposition strength

Winning matches against teams with a higher ranking is more significant than against minnows.

The somewhat confusing calculation for this is: Opposition strength multiplier = [200 - ranking position]/100.

This means that a team ranked fourth (England) have an opposition strength multiplier of [200-4]/100 = 1.96.

Scotland have a multiplier of [200-34]/100 = 1.66, while a team ranked 149th have a multiplier of 0.51. Any team below 150 automatically has a multiplier of 0.5.

This seems fair, in principle, but shares an inherent weakness with other rankings systems that take opposition strength into account.

Basing a measure on another one already in the system can lead to an exacerbation of any errors and damages the integrity of the rankings.

Regional strength

Fifa acknowledge that European and South American competition is stronger than elsewhere by applying multipliers to matches against teams from different regions.

Uefa (Europe): 1.0x
Conmebol (S America): 0.98x
Caf (Africa): 0.85x
Concacaf (N&C America): 0.85x
OFC (Oceania): 0.85x
AFC (Asia): 0.85x

This means that continental cup matches are weighted down in weaker regions, which seems appropriate, but also works against strong teams in weak regions, such as Australia. It also has the appearance of sharing an arbitrary and unshifting quality with the match status, placing Asia at the same level as Oceania, for example.

Ratings period

Fifa sensibly weight results in favour of the more recent.

Within the last 12 months: 1.0x
12-24 months: 0.5x
24-36 months: 0.3x
36-48 months: 0.2x

This means that matches in the past year are five times more relevant to matches three to four years ago, giving a reasonably, if again arbitrary, up-to-date nature to the rankings.

When all these are applied the figure is multiplied by 100 and rounded off to give the points total.

All very scientific, all very complicated, but is it reflective of team strength? Are England better than Italy? Or Germany? Or Portugal?

The only way to tell is to pit teams against each other as a way of determining who is best, perhaps in some kind of tournament. If there are too many teams to make that feasible, a qualifying stage could be introduced to eliminate the weaker sides, perhaps based regionally for logistical reasons, with a finals tournament once every so often, perhaps every four years.

And if all of the national teams in the world can enter, why don't we call it the World Cup?

These rankings are as of 13th September 2006

1. Brazil
2. France
3. Argentina
4. England
5. Italy
6. Holland
7. Czech Republic
8. Germany
9. Portugal
10. Spain


Selected others:

34. Scotland
43. Republic of Ireland (shared with Iran)
58. Northern Ireland
62. Wales

The next rankings will be on 18 October 2006

Wow, this is the first time we have been ahead of the ROI in years.


34. Scotland
43. Republic of Ireland (shared with Iran

Quite amazing

why is England still above us...cant we get alittle credit, we worked hard for it.
Maybe i can guilt trip the president of FIFA, they seem to accept just about everything else to raise or keep rankings

England are 4th

Yea its whacked out man!

"init"

yeah i agree on Uruguay question, they really arent a big football nation anymore, but look at Germany man, they're still behing England and Netherlands! the last and unique important competition that England won is that WC in 66. and Netherlands only got an European title in 88, while Germany was WORLD CHAMPIONS in 90, european champions in 96, and second placed in 2002 WC! i just cant understand that. and i also dont understand this


!!!!! Italy was dropped to 5th!! i know they lost to France and Croatia, but those matches dont really mean something. if they fail to qualify to the european champ., then ok drop then, but not now. and why England and Argentina are in 3rd and 4th??what they have achieved after the wc?

I don't think anyone understands it all really

lol yup.

Oct 2006

1 Brazil
2 Italy
3 France
4 Argentina
5 England
6 Germany
7 Netherlands
8 Czech Republic
9 Portugal
10 Spain
11 Nigeria
12 Cameroon
13 Ukraine
14 Greece
15 Switzerland
16 Sweden
17 Uruguay
18 Côte d'Ivoire
19 Mexico
19 Croatia

21 Turkey
22 Denmark
23 Romania
24 Ghana
25 Egypt
25 Scotland
27 Poland
28 Tunisia
29 Paraguay
29 USA
31 Guinea
32 Serbia
33 Russia
34 Ecuador
35 Colombia
36 Israel
37 Australia
38 Bulgaria
39 Senegal
40 Morocco

41 Slovakia
41 Mali
43 Iran
44 Chile
45 Northern Ireland
46 Japan
47 Belgium
48 Korea Republic
49 Republic of Ireland
50 FYR Macedonia
51 Norway
77 Wales

England 5th, Scotland 25th, Northern Ireland 45th and ROI 49th. What are your thoughts?

When was the last time NI was above ROI in the Fifa Ranking?

we're 5 places up thanks to the win against england..
still.. england is 5th! ridiculous..

this is full of s**t! switzerland, cameroon.. what the hell!?

Switzerland and cameroon arent bad teams..
Who are Guinea though in 31st?? ive never heard of their team

Ireland have become pathetic recently, 2 years ago we were one place behind England and over 100 places above northern ireland and now look at us!!

They are an African Nation, Bobo Balde the Celtic player is captain of Guinea!

if England losed to Vaticano by 1735 x 0 they wud still keep them on 5th place, or probably up them to 4th.

hahaha This is true!