World Ranking

[pineapple stu]

Er, I didn't suggest that (FIFA's system was unique in that respect). Incidentally aside from Elo, UEFA's does as well.

You suggested that Elo doesn't weight towards the present, and said FIFA's system was better because of this. But both systems weight towards the present, so your argument is invalid.

Yes, I think the potential for 'huge swings' as you call them is a good thing. I explained why above: teams who are normally mediocre can get a tangible credit for improvement in the next tournament (ie immediate higher seeding); teams who stiff and fail to qualify from first seeding get a tougher group next time.

But the draw for the World Cup was by necessity made way before the Euro finals, so Wales' huge swing wouldn't have happened by the time of the draw anyway. So you can't say Wales should be higher than Ireland because of a good Euros, and then say the system should be heavily biased towards this to help them get a higher ranking.

You also want a highly reactive rankings list, but then complain that the current system overrates Ireland based on recent form. These two opinions are mutually exclusive. If you only want rankings once a year, that's fine - just ignore all the ones in between and don't be complaining about them. They're not used for anything anyway.

My preferred system for ranking would be to

a) publish them only once each year (ie immediately after a tournament and at the end of qualifying for the also rans

b) use that from the end of qualifying to seed the next qualifying tournament starting the following year

This effectively happens now anyway as the intermediate rankings published each month are completely irrelevant. Both Elo and FIFA rankings will do this. (An exception was for the current qualifiers, when the draw was made before the Euro qualifiers were completed - this was daft).

Fine. We're agreed that FIFA's system is flawed.

Yup.

My argument is quite simple- a ranking system should quickly reward recent past achievement. We're agreed that Elo often doesn't and can't do that.

My point is there's no reason for the rankings to react quite as quickly as you've suggested.

You haven't put a convincing argument that Elo is self-evidently better suited to football ranking.

I have - I've refuted your two technical arguments (that Elo ratings include all games going back to the beginning of time, and that they don't weight towards the present like FIFA's system - neither of which are true). I've concluded that this means you don't understand how the system works - which is a logical conclusion. As I've said before, Elo rankings are based on statistical mathematics, which alone means they're slightly better suited to the job than FIFA's rankings.

In particular, FIFA rankings are based on an average score per game, and if you play fewer friendlies (which are scored lower), your average score will increase and you can skew the rankings. Switzerland were top seeds for the 2014 World Cup qualifying because of this, and Romania are top seeds for 2018 for the same reason. In this regard, Elo rankings are far superior, as they're based on trying to evaluate your strength rather than attributing a score per match, and are consequently much harder to manipulate.

I think I mistakenly quoted you when it should have been John 83 above. Apologies.

Fair enough. But I don't think John83 particularly cares about Ireland's world ranking either btw. I think in fact most people don't care most of the time.

He's just showing a different - maybe more reliable - ranking system.

[geysir]

Possibly GR´s partial bias against Elo rankings is because...

ELO Uefa ranking
13. FAI 1757
27. IFA 1625

FIFA Uefa ranking

20. IFA 798
21. FAI 774

[swinfordfc]

33rd in latest rankings

[tetsujin1979]

Article on football365 on how Wales and Romania beat the rankings system by not playing friendlies: http://www.football365.com/news/how-...ankings-system

[Real ale Madrid]

Article on football365 on how Wales and Romania beat the rankings system by not playing friendlies: http://www.football365.com/news/how-...ankings-system

Great stuff thanks for sharing.

Meanwhile John Delaney has us playing Oman.

[tetsujin1979]

Wales and Romania don't have a stadium to pay off

[pineapple stu]

Article on football365 on how Wales and Romania beat the rankings system by not playing friendlies: http://www.football365.com/news/how-...ankings-system

Yep; I referenced it (the issue, if not the article) in my post further up the page. Switzerland have done it too.

A big plus for Elo ratings over UEFA rankings.

[Real ale Madrid]

Wales and Romania don't have a stadium to pay off

Getting to the World Cup will help the debt more than the Oman Friendly I would have thought.

[geysir]

I hope it turns out more fortunate for us that Wales managed to beat the rankings system and are our group's first seed.

[BonnieShels]

That's what Switzerland have been doing for years.

[swinfordfc]

With the win over Austria - this should boosts us up to the mid 20's I guess?

[Charlie Darwin]

I saw 23 somewhere this morning, not sure if it was accurate or not.

[dantheman]

Yup 23:


http://www.football-rankings.info/20...l-preview.html

[swinfordfc]

Nice one! .... onto Wales in March

[DeLorean]

Nice one! .... onto Wales in March

Yeah, Wales are ranked 11th so a win there would be worth a nice few points I presume?

I see Argentina are fairly comfortable in top spot. Strange considering they're struggling in the South American qualification, winning less than half their matches and only occupying the playoff spot currently. They did reach back to back Copa America finals I suppose as well as the World Cup final, but lost them all.

[tetsujin1979]

Finish the year in 23rd, although there was only a few internationals since the last update and few teams changed their rank: http://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranki...men/index.html
Wales 11th, Austria 31st, Serbia 44th, Georgia 118th, Moldova 164th

[BonnieShels]

So here we go...

Us'uns at 26... (how apt)
Them'uns at 26 (Spleugh)

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2017/...fifa-rankings/

NB. Them'uns are slightly ahead on 823.23 (vs our 822.62). Both rounded up to 823.

[Gather round]

Afternoon all. I'll admit I wasn't making much sense up there re the Elo ranking system.

NI are currently ranked #29 in Europe using it (#51). Given that

a) rankings are claimed to converge on a team's true strength relative to its competitors after about 30 matches, and

b) we've played 26 since September 2014 (19 competitive, 7 friendly)

can we assume that should we make the play-offs there'd be a rise into the top 20?

[Closed Account]

This website is pretty useful:
http://www.football-rankings.info/

Here is the current standings for the Nations League which will be determined after the World Cup qualifiers are over. (5-7 games)
1 1 Germany 34346
2 3 France 32508
3 4 Portugal 32415
4 2 Belgium 31782
5 5 Spain 30990
6 6 England 30891
7 8 Italy 30346
8 9 Switzerland 30006
9 7 Russia 29258
10 10 Croatia 28319
11 11 Poland 28022
12 12 Iceland 26215
----------------------------------
13 14 Austria 26198
14 19 Bosnia and Herzegovina 25340
15 15 Wales 25209
16 17 Republic of Ireland 25009
17 13 Netherlands 24925
18 20 Slovakia 24894
19 21 Sweden 24686
20 16 Ukraine 24666
21 23 Czech Republic 24167
22 18 Hungary 24126
23 24 Turkey 23758
24 26 Northern Ireland 23467

And based on simulations, how likely we are we qualify for the World Cup (64.65%)

AFC: Iran, Japan, Korea Republic, Australia, Saudi Arabia

CAF: Egypt, Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Congo DR, Senegal

CONCACAF: Mexico, Costa Rica, USA

CONMEBOL: Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina

UEFA: Germany, Poland, France, England, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Croatia, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Iceland



These would be the seeds: Russia, Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Poland, Chile, Portugal, Colombia.

[geysir]

Earlier it was mentioned that Romania didn't play friendlies in order to boost their first pot seeding potential in the WC qual draw. I see the main benefit of that ruse has fallen to Poland who are cruising at the top after beating the (false) first seeds 3 nil