Wales were top seeds, Austria second.
So they were. Still though, all the one really. We knew they were four relatively even teams when the draw was made.
There's nothing more meaningless than worrying about who we would play in a playoff BC we all know it's inevitable anyway. Why worry about what you can't avoid?
We're expected to fall from 29th to 33rd in the next edition of the FIFA rankings: http://www.punditarena.com/football/...fifa-rankings/
That certainly won't be of help to us if we do somehow manage to qualify for the play-offs as FIFA announced today that the draw would be seeded.
Fifa to review rankings system after friendlies harm England's World Cup seeding
'The much-derided Fifa rankings system is to be reviewed after it emerged playing too many friendlies was set to cost England a seeding again at next summer’s World Cup.'
Ah, the good ol' Telegraph... I love how they portray it as if FIFA have been compelled to act - for all that is right and good in the world - because poor England have been in some way uniquely shafted by the governing body's incompetence/shadiness.Originally Posted by geysir
Well, isn't that very honourable of England?...
Ah, so it's actually profits that might be a guiding motive behind playing glamour friendlies then rather than the purported safeguarding of competitive integrity. OK.
As is clear from the FIFA spokesperson quote tucked away towards the end of the article, FIFA would be conducting a general review of the system anyway, regardless of England's alleged misfortune:
There's no specific mention of England at all.
As an aside, it is a bit mad that Poland are ranked fifth. Where on earth did that come out of?
Last edited by DannyInvincible; 07/09/2017 at 4:09 PM.
The World Ranking system is sponsored by Coca-Cola? That's just silly.
As the article says, Poland, like Switzerland, have stopped playing friendlies. Only 1 in the last 14 months. They've also only dropped two points in qualifying (the defeat against Denmark isn't recorded yet) and reached the last 8 of the Euros, where they lost on penalties. On that basis, it seems quite plausible.As an aside, it is a bit mad that Poland are ranked fifth. Where on earth did that come out of?
Elo rankings are the way to go really.
Morning all. After getting completely muddled up-thread I've been increasingly persuaded by PA Stu and others that Elo's system would be fairer and easier to understand.
That said, NI have played 31 games since WC 2014. That should be enough (according to Elo's advocates) to measure our strength relative to teams who didn't qualify for 2016 and are doing less well than us this time. Yet Scotland, Bosnia, Denmark and Netherlands are all still ranked ahead of us.
If Elo was used to seed the current second place sides, Portugal, Italy, Sweden and Iceland would be ahead of Slovakia, Bosnia, NI and Montenegro.
Competitive Games 2014-17
SCOTLAND 18 8 5 5 29
R IRELAND 24 10 9 5 39
N IRELAND 22 13 4 5 43
WALES 24 13 8 3 47
ENGLAND 22 17 4 1 52
Poor old England. Basically none of their games matter. In qualifying, they swat aside Azermolduania and co in their sleep; the supposedly glamor friendlies are half paced and often lost anyway; then they arrive at the finals expecting to go out to the first decent oppo with soapyhands Joe throwing at least one in the net
Last edited by Gather round; 08/09/2017 at 9:47 AM.
There's a sculpture to the side of the main road south out of Reykjavik, it's from 1974 it's called the falling/failing currency and has since lived through 3 or 4 currency collapses.
I think it's black comedy genius.
I think it also fits to nicely describe Ireland's falling FIFA ranking.
What has changed with our cycles though is our highs are getting lower and our lows are getting deeper.
Didn't Bjork go skateboarding on that once Geysir?
Welcome on board!
I haven't done any full analysis of what you've noted - but have you checked the standard of the teams those sides are playing?
You will never gain points for a win or lose points for a defeat under Elo - but it is possible for, say, a win and two losses to increase your rating while a draw and two wins could decrease it.
So the strength of qualifying groups will be a factor. Third behind Germany and Poland could even be better than first ahead of Romania and Hungary.
Elo works - so there has to be a reason there somewhere. Just a case of trying to find out what it is.
No- I've just taken as my starting point that "Ratings tend to converge on a team's true strength relative to its competitors after about 30 matches" as Elo's website suggests. I even allowed a 3% margin of error with that 31st game
Indeed, I broadly understand the science and remember it vaguely from A Level Maths. But surely we aren't looking at short-term variations, but long-term trends?You will never gain points for a win or lose points for a defeat under Elo - but it is possible for, say, a win and two losses to increase your rating while a draw and two wins could decrease it
Touche. Strictly, it potentially works for football matches as the football authorities prefer to take Coca-Cola's money than use something more scientific.So the strength of qualifying groups will be a factor. Third behind Germany and Poland could even be better than first ahead of Romania and Hungary.
Elo works - so there has to be a reason there somewhere. Just a case of trying to find out what it is
As I may have mentioned previously, Romania and Hungary (as well as Greece and Finland) ALL carried a better recent competitive record into 2016 qualifying than you, Scotland, Poland and Georgia did...
That's got nothing to do with the point I made though.No- I've just taken as my starting point that "Ratings tend to converge on a team's true strength relative to its competitors after about 30 matches" as Elo's website suggests. I even allowed a 3% margin of error with that 31st game.
You can get a higher rating even by not qualifying if you have a tougher group.
You can lose half your games and have a higher rating than a country who win 80% of their games if they're against teams of sufficiently high rating.
I reckon this is what's happened the north
I understand your point. Mine (I think supported by Elo's own statement) was that differing standards of groups/ individual opposition) converge over time. 30 games over 3 years is a fairly long time.
Separately- why does Elo's scheme exclude Israel from European tables but include Kibris and Vatican City? Isn't that just silly?
You're right in that second in a group should be roughly speaking consistent - the groups are designed to be even.
Obviously points scored will impact on that - second with 24 points is better than second with 18 points.
But looking at the groups, ye did have Romania as top seeds in 2016 qualifying for example. UEFA seed them highly - and this thread is in part about how that may be wrong - but Elo won't rank them as highly at all. So it's possible that actually, ye've had an easier group or two, which is reflected in the ratings. If I get time, I might try do some sort of analysis of that.
One potential drawback with Elo ratings is a similar thing to that seen in chess, incidentally, and that's regional inflation. If you have a pool of players which is mostly self-contained (Irish chess players; South American teams), it's possible that a rating of 1700 isn't comparable to a rating of 1700 elsewhere (e.g. among Spanish chess players or European football teams). This is because there isn't enough intermingling to really set a level standard. So Venezuela in particular may be overrated, albeit that they're picking up a few points in a bloody tough qualifying group.
No idea on Israel, although Australia are still in Oceania as well, so maybe they've left nations in their original confederations? (Although Kazakhstan are in Europe, so that doesn't seem consistent)
I think there's enough intercontinental games to avoid excessive regional differences. If it was a concern, FIFA could sponsor some intercontinental cups - essentially lower tiers to the confederation's cup - once in a while to rebalance things.
Romania were a third seed for 2016 qualifying, behind Greece and Hungary.
This guy runs simulations based on ELO ratings and gives a percentage on the number of times a country qualifies.
From his last run we've gone from a
64.65% chance of qualifying to
6.51% chance of qualifying.
I know this is impossible now as there are more games tonight .... but where would we be kinda placed in this? ... Top 25?
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