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

[Floortom]

9 minutes ago, phil03 said:

IMO our mid to long term objective should be to get past Mexico. I feel they are just at the point where FIFA rankings and how it used's tendency to protect teams who have done well in the past is no longer going to be enough to protect them...

This is the worst Mexico squad of all time so it’s doable. But we have to win trophies for this to happen. Otherwise we’ll keep languishing in the 30-50 range as we have the last few years.

[phil03]

11 hours ago, Floortom said:

This is the worst Mexico squad of all time so it’s doable. But we have to win trophies for this to happen. Otherwise we’ll keep languishing in the 30-50 range as we have the last few years.

Money from Mexican-Americans for El-Tri and LigaMx has already started to dry up due to generational changes (the balance of immigration between Mexico and the US has actually been in Mexico's favor in the last few years, with most newcomers from Latin America being from further south) and new generations having less of a direct connection with Mexico, like it has often happened with immigrant communities all over the place, so their Soccer viewing habits are becoming more similar than those of other Americans. It means that all of a sudden they'll need the transfer money that they won't get, and will suffer even more from not sending enough player abroad, due to a lot of European clubs having essentially given up on Mexico, thanks to the fact LigaMx domestic players are so overpaid it often makes no financial sense for them to go to Europe...  

On top of that LigaMx is kinda of becoming the worst of both worlds, with no salary cap and no pro-rel. That means that, except for the top table clubs, the rest of LigaMx has litterally no pressure whatsoever. They can't get relegated and they have fans who accept they probably won't compete for trophies anytime soon. They are just money making bloobs now, and its going to impact a very LigaMx-reliant El Tri...

I agree on the rest though.

Edited July 15 by phil03

[Approve My Account Pls]

On ELO we just passed the US

[narduch]

3 minutes ago, Approve My Account Pls said:

On ELO we just passed the US

We can probably pass Mexico if we beat them in our September friendly 

[Stryker911]

If we had been able to hold on last night we would have moved up to around 32.

[PastPros]

We are up to #40 in FIFA (according to live rankings)

[TOcanadafan]

Just for fun, I guessed at the teams that would qualify and I did a 2026 World Cup Draw, where pots were made based on current FIFA rankings.

It's great Canada will get a 1st seed, but as you see, they could still end up in a tricky group.   Having 8 third-place teams qualify for the knockout round helps our chances to get out.

 

[Obinna]

20 hours ago, TOcanadafan said:

Just for fun, I guessed at the teams that would qualify and I did a 2026 World Cup Draw, where pots were made based on current FIFA rankings.

It's great Canada will get a 1st seed, but as you see, they could still end up in a tricky group.   Having 8 third-place teams qualify for the knockout round helps our chances to get out.

 

Couldn't you just see USA and Mexico getting grouped?

[Mihairokov]

2 hours ago, Obinna said:

Couldn't you just see USA and Mexico getting grouped?

Mexico wouldn't get grouped against NZ but the US would absolutely get grouped against Switzerland, Nigeria, and Saudi.

That would be a really tricky group for us. All three of those teams could beat us on their day. I know people are hesitant about expanding the WC to more teams but there are a lot of good teams out there that never qualify. 

[Obinna]

1 minute ago, Mihairokov said:

Mexico wouldn't get grouped against NZ but the US would absolutely get grouped against Switzerland, Nigeria, and Saudi.

That would be a really tricky group for us. All three of those teams could beat us on their day. I know people are hesitant about expanding the WC to more teams but there are a lot of good teams out there that never qualify. 

Mexico could finish 3rd and get grouped.. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

Where did this term "grouped" come from? Is it new, our slang on this board, something people have been using. I never heard it before this tournament.

[Obinna]

1 minute ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Where did this term "grouped" come from? Is it new, our slang on this board, something people have been using. I never heard it before this tournament.

It's a new phenomenon that seemed to crop up about a month ago. You're not alone if you only started hearing it recently.

Probably emerged from the Gen Z ether..

[Kadenge]

I'm pissed that Panama are still ahead of us even after Canada reaching the SFs of Copa.  I know we  won on PKs vs Venezuela, but given the teams we played and taking Uruguay to PKs it just doesn't seem right. Another knock on how FIFA rankings are compiled.

[InglewoodJack]

FIFA rankings are crazy. We don’t win trophies so we’re in the 30s. Belgium, on the other hand, participation trophy’d their way into #2 OA.

 

(I know there’s more than that, but it’s insane that the current 3rd best team in the world has no hardware, and while we’re at it, the #5 will go a minimum of 60 years between their last trophy and next possible one)

[narduch]

8 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Where did this term "grouped" come from? Is it new, our slang on this board, something people have been using. I never heard it before this tournament.

Ok. Glad I wasn't the only one.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

14 minutes ago, Obinna said:

It's a new phenomenon that seemed to crop up about a month ago. You're not alone if you only started hearing it recently.

Probably emerged from the Gen Z ether..

It felt like an Americanism to me but I could be wrong.

 

It is actually too new for the word tools (corpuses) that I can usually use to nerd out on things like that. 

Edit: I do see one about USA Basketball from March of this year. 

Edit2:  But I did find one in a comment about Man U from Dec of last year, that is earlier and might not be American.

"12/12/2023, 14:59:09

Football Italia

I giardini di Marzo: Man utd got grouped against Copenhagen and Gala...HAHAHAHHAHA"

I know that site used to be from the Channel 4 (UK) program of the same name when they had Serie A rights.  I used to visit it before I went to the UK so who knows where the comments would come from.

Sorry this is kind of what I do, except with old stuff. 

Edited July 15 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[eramosat]

6 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

FIFA rankings are crazy. We don’t win trophies so we’re in the 30s. Belgium, on the other hand, participation trophy’d their way into #2 OA.

 

(I know there’s more than that, but it’s insane that the current 3rd best team in the world has no hardware, and while we’re at it, the #5 will go a minimum of 60 years between their last trophy and next possible one)

you'll simply need to reference something a lot more comprehensive than a gang-up on Belgium before I'm ready to throw away the basic FIFA rankings, which are pretty reliable for ranking team capabilities.  And which actually affect real things in the real world, as opposed to ELO rankings, which only affect fan brain-think wish-think, which is an endless discussion with little point.  

The title of the thread includes "FIFA rankings", and rightly so.  The more ELO references are made, the less the thread means anything, except engaging in wishing.

6 hours ago, Kadenge said:

I'm pissed that Panama are still ahead of us even after Canada reaching the SFs of Copa.  I know we  won on PKs vs Venezuela, but given the teams we played and taking Uruguay to PKs it just doesn't seem right. Another knock on how FIFA rankings are compiled.

As to why Panama outranks Canada in FIFA rankings?  Because Canada lost all 3 of their matches in the World Cup.  Because Panama finished 2nd in the most recent CONCACAF-only tournament, the Gold Cup (Canada was...5th?  6th?  who knows, but their meaningful results included draws vs Guadeloupe and Guatemala!!).  And because Canada only advanced one more round in COPA than Panama, but Panama happened to win 2 matches outright in their Group of 3, including outright victory over the USA.  Canada only outright beat one team, Peru.  See the differences?

Canada has a long way to go before being considered a true outright #3 in CONCACAF, let alone anything superior to that.   

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, eramosat said:

you'll simply need to reference something a lot more comprehensive than a gang-up on Belgium before I'm ready to throw away the basic FIFA rankings, which are pretty reliable for ranking team capabilities.  And which actually affect real things in the real world, as opposed to ELO rankings, which only affect fan brain-think wish-think, which is an endless discussion with little point.  

The title of the thread includes "FIFA rankings", and rightly so.  The more ELO references are made, the less the thread means anything, except engaging in wishing.

As to why Panama outranks Canada in FIFA rankings?  Because Canada lost all 3 of their matches in the World Cup.  Because Panama finished 2nd in the most recent CONCACAF-only tournament, the Gold Cup (Canada was...5th?  6th?  who knows, but their meaningful results included draws vs Guadeloupe and Guatemala!!).  And because Canada only advanced one more round in COPA than Panama, but Panama happened to win 2 matches outright in their Group of 3, including outright victory over the USA.  Canada only outright beat one team, Peru.  See the differences?

Canada has a long way to go before being considered a true outright #3 in CONCACAF, let alone anything superior to that.   

And then, we lost our last match vs. Panama there, when we were set to push up to 32nd or 33rd in rankings. It was just 2 years ago and a bit more. We also lost against Costa Rica earlier that window. Those results ended up dropping us into a lower pot for Qatar, where we had an extremely difficult group. We dropped 5 ranking points from the rankings of February 2022 to the end of March after the WC qualifying ended.

Then we dropped 5 more points by the June 22 rankings came out. We went from 33 to 43 in 3 months while we kept repeating we were "kings of Concacaf". 

Panama ended WC qualifying lower than 60 but have not been doing finger puppet moves up their own butt for the last two years.

There are plenty of factors involved but if you play and compete in a way that cares about ranking points, you also invite teams you can probably beat to play friendlies at home, you host Guatemala or Vietnam and you are getting points. Canada has never done this, we have never done tune-ups of any substance at home with collateral FIFA points.

Edited July 16 by Unnamed Trialist

[InglewoodJack]

8 hours ago, eramosat said:

you'll simply need to reference something a lot more comprehensive than a gang-up on Belgium before I'm ready to throw away the basic FIFA rankings, which are pretty reliable for ranking team capabilities.  And which actually affect real things in the real world, as opposed to ELO rankings, which only affect fan brain-think wish-think, which is an endless discussion with little point.  

You conveniently omitted my gang up on England too there. No one is saying we should get rid of FIFA rankings. Just that it’s funny some teams are stuck at the top of the rankings with very little to show for it in terms of hardware, that’s all. Cheers

[Kadenge]

The system/criteria used for FIFA rankings needs improvement and not just because of Canada's ranking. Points for intra Confederation results is one issue.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

2 minutes ago, Kadenge said:

The system/criteria used for FIFA rankings needs improvement and not just because of Canada's ranking. Points for intra Confederation results is one issue.

There is no difference for in or out of Confederation. It is just based on window and type of match.

No sure what you want unless friendlies are worth more?  World Cup stuff is worth the most. 

[Kadenge]

1 hour ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

There is no difference for in or out of Confederation. It is just based on window and type of match.

No sure what you want unless friendlies are worth more?  World Cup stuff is worth the most. 

The reliance on Intra confederation matches especially for weak Confeds like Concacaf  generates inflated rankings for heavyweights such as the USA and Mexico or a team like Panama who have fielded their A team for the GCs and good for them for moving up. The WC is once every 4 yrs and the groups are drawn based on FIFA rankings which favours higher ranked teams.  The recent Copa is what needs to happen more often for a more accurate rankings system. No system is perfect and for clarity I'm not saying that Canada should be ranked higher but that Panama, USA & Mexico are higher than they should be, especially if you look at some of the teams below them.  8 points for a tie vs Uruguay in regulation time in a 3rd/4th Copa match seems low given the disparity in rankings btw the 2 teams. No expert on FIFA rankings , but does a home or away match factor into the points allocated?  It's complicated for sure, but like others, some of the rankings just seem really off. NL has just compounded the issue re weaker Confeds and World rankings.

[Obinna]

The teams who most often stick out like sore thumbs in the FIFA rankings are USA and Mexico (and maybe Belgium). 

As for the USA and Mexico, and Canada for that matter, none of us have World Cup Qualifiers, so perhaps less chance to pick up ranking points for the remainder of this cycle. Fortunately we do have NL and a Gold Cup to play for.

According to the live rankings, USA fell 4 spots to 15 and Mexico fell 2 spots to 17, so not much I can complain about here. I still think both are inferoir to Japan (18), but for them to be ranked towards the tail end of the top 20, I would say that is more or less appropriate. 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

16 minutes ago, Kadenge said:

The reliance on Intra confederation matches especially for weak Confeds like Concacaf  generates inflated rankings for heavyweights such as the USA and Mexico or a team like Panama who have fielded their A team for the GCs and good for them for moving up. The WC is once every 4 yrs and the groups are drawn based on FIFA rankings which favours higher ranked teams.  The recent Copa is what needs to happen more often for a more accurate rankings system. No system is perfect and for clarity I'm not saying that Canada should be ranked higher but that Panama, USA & Mexico are higher than they should be, especially if you look at some of the teams below them.  8 points for a tie vs Uruguay in regulation time in a 3rd/4th Copa match seems low given the disparity in rankings btw the 2 teams. No expert on FIFA rankings , but does a home or away match factor into the points allocated?  It's complicated for sure, but like others, some of the rankings just seem really off. NL has just compounded the issue re weaker Confeds and World rankings.

Home and away doesn't matter. 

Essentially points of opponent, type of game (various ranks but basically tournament vs. friendly) and in window or out for friendlies are the only things in the formula . 

P = Pbefore + I * (W – We)   

P = Points 

I= importance of match  (ie. ranging from friendlies outside a window to World Cup knockouts)

W = Result

We = expected result based on your opponent's points

 

It sounds like a lot of what you are talking about is a scheduling issue not a ratings issue.  The ratings can only judge the games that are being played. 

The system is not perfect and can be worked but it has to be the same formula for everyone.

(Other than our egos, we benefit when other Concacaf teams are "overranked")

Edited July 16 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[Unnamed Trialist]

3 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

You conveniently omitted my gang up on England too there. No one is saying we should get rid of FIFA rankings. Just that it’s funny some teams are stuck at the top of the rankings with very little to show for it in terms of hardware, that’s all. Cheers

There are top 5 tennis players who've never won a grand slam.