QuoteAnd so it shouldn't! In fact we should be penalised for arranging such a nonsense fixture.
Well last night would have not helped us in any way moving upwards!
And so it shouldn't! In fact we should be penalised for arranging such a nonsense fixture.
Money makes the world go round....Originally Posted by DeLorean
And so it shouldn't! In fact we should be penalised for arranging such a nonsense fixture.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Still 31st in the next one .... but have drop points ... into the 700's
26th, up ten places year on year in the elo ratings: http://www.eloratings.net/ (I buy these statistically generated rankings way over FIFA's skewed system)
You can't spell failure without FAI
Think we are down to around 34th later this month when they come out!
Both systems are statistically generated and both are skewed. Elo ranks a team that managed a win and a draw in the Euros higher than one which won four games in reaching the semis. It's also fairly pointless including North Cyprus, Greenland etc who don't play in FIFA/ UEFA competitions.
Broadly, FIFA 'rewards' recent good performance, Elo predicts future scores based on every past result ever.
As we've just finished the Euros and the WC qualifiers have just started, the UEFA prize money table is as good as any guide. You're joint 14th in Europe, Wales are 4th.
Elo doesn't base on every past result ever. In an Elo rating, typically only the last 100 results are included; any older results are completely out of the system by then.
I don't know the background behind Portugal and Wales' respective ratings, but it's very trite to suggest that they're wrong purely because of the euros (in which Wales lost two games and Portugal lost none, incidentally). Portugal did better in qualifying than Wales, for example (7-0-1 v 6-3-1). And Portugal reached the 2014 World Cup, whereas Wales were second last in their qualifying group.
This information certainly comes out of the blue. Time for us to face the music and ditch this system.
*grabs coat*
I like high energy football. A little bit rock and roll. Many finishes instead of waiting for the perfect one.
Their website suggests otherwise:
I didn't mention Portugal, the comparison was Wales and Ireland (in direct response to you talking up your own team's rating). Elo slightly overrates you based on recent form (ie the current and most recent tournament) and underrates Wales to a much larger extent. Which doesn't actually give it much credibility as a barometer of recent achievement.
I quoted evidence of Elo's triteness above.
The ratings go back to the start of time, but Elo ratings by their very nature will only reflect the most recent 100 or so matches. That's just how they work. So while the guys have gone back to the start of time, effectively, a 1910 win by Ireland v England will not be reflected in the 2016 rating. It's simply too far back in time to have an effect any more. The two teams' ratings would today be the exact same regardless of that 1910 result. (In fact, the link you quoted says that ratings will converge on a figure after 30 matches. So you yourself quoted a refutation of your own "all matches" point. I think once you go to 100 matches, there's literally no impact on a rating (to all intents and purposes anyway - to a number of decimal points)
I didn't talk about Ireland's rating? But let's also bear in mind that Ireland also had a better qualifying campaign than Wales in 2014 and qualified for 2012. These results do still count towards both an Elo rating and a FIFA rating - and rightly so. You can't just rate countries based on one summer. However, if Wales continue playing better than Ireland, our rating will fall, and theirs will rise. And this, in fact, is exactly what is happening - Ireland have gained 36 points in the past year, while Wales have gained 88 points in the same time.
I don't think you understand how Elo ratings work.
In fact, you can compare the two countries' ratings over time -
So you can see Wales have been catching us in recent years, exactly as I suggested. Indeed, Wales had passed us out before we beat Moldova and they drew with Georgia at the weekend. If Wales can keep up their Euro 2016 form, they will pass us out again quite soon - possibly even by beating us in Cardiff next March (if they do beat us)Code:Date Ireland Wales 13/10/2016 1757 1745 30/06/2016 1737 1728 31/12/2015 1748 1650 30/06/2015 1696 1676 31/12/2014 1711 1597 30/06/2014 1665 1569 31/12/2013 1689 1562 30/06/2013 1726 1582 31/12/2012 1704 1555 30/06/2012 1712 1604
You don't pay absolute heed to exact rankings as with any ranking system - Ireland aren't suddenly a better team than Wales because they drew with Georgia on Sunday for example - but Elo ratings are based in statistical mathematics, they do work, and they are used in other areas (e.g. chess and Go world rankings)
Not that it's relevant to what you're discussing but Wales come to Dublin in March and we visit Cardiff in the final game.
Whoops! You're right.
It's actually slightly relevant as Wales would get more Elo points by beating us away than by beating us at home I think.
They don't work very well as an effective measure of recent achievement in football tournaments, as I demonstrated. Basically because they aren't based on the two-year tournament cycle after which every team starts again on zero points. FIFA's system has many faults, but it does reflect this to some extent (by weighting results two or three years ago in a previous tournament at only 20% or 30% of those this season).
Given the above, I see little point in familiarising myself with the details (although I readily accept their application elsewhere, eg in chess). Which needs some way of comparing a huge number of players and tournaments. International football, with only 200-odd teams and a simple tournament structure doesn't. So the system is unlikely to be adopted by FIFA, a good thing in my opinion. If it were, one of the likely effects would be usually unsuccessful teams (Wales, Iceland, NI) not getting appropriate reward (ie high seeding) following a one-off success.
I suspect you don't understand that just because something is a) professionally interesting to you and b) of nominal benefit to your team doesn't make it universally beneficial
I may be going slightly out on a limb here, but I'd hazard a guess the reason for this is the fact it's not supposed to measure recent achievement in football tournaments.
It's a great discovery to find a fellow enthusiast. It's not before time (though it was, of course...)
Hello, hello? What's going on? What's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here!
- E Tattsyrup.
That was my point. Instead, it acts effectively as a predictor of future results. I prefer to use a bookie for that.
FIFA rankings include data on games over the past four years.
The Elo ratings site says its ratings include data on the past 30 games - which is actually a shorter timeframe. So the Elo system actually goes the way you want it to - it includes fewer results. (30 games ago for Ireland brings you back to Costa Rica 1-1 Ireland in June 2014)
In both cases, older games are weighted much less. It is not the case, as you suggest, that the FIFA system is the only one that weights older games less; Elo does this too. If you go back to that Costa Rica friendly and say we won, we would have gained an extra 20 points. But if you keep all other results since then the same - so the only difference is now that we beat rather than drew with Costa Rica 30 games ago - Ireland's rating today might be 1 or 2 points higher.
In both cases, there will be a bit of a lag when a team improves quite quickly (like Wales have done). In neither case will a team shoot to fourth in the rankings purely by cirtue of reaching a semi-finals, as you seem to be suggesting should happen. This would be daft as you'd then have huge swings, which would kind of go towards invalidating the entire point of rankings. A similar argument would say that it would be daft to have Wales ranked ahead of Ireland when we're ahead of Wales in the qualifying group at the moment.
The only real difference is that FIFA rankings are based on a makey-uppey formula used only by FIFA, while Elo ratings are based on statistical mathematics and are used in many other sports. I know which I'd prefer.
For the record, I have no professional interest in Elo statistics, and I couldn't give a flying ****e where Ireland are ranked in the world.
Seriously, your argument doesn't stack up here, not helped by the fact that you admit you don't understand how Elo works. I'm not sure how that makes you qualified to dismiss it.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 14/10/2016 at 9:39 AM.
Er, I didn't suggest that (FIFA's system was unique in that respect). Incidentally aside from Elo, UEFA's does as well.
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.a team shoot to fourth in the rankings purely by cirtue of reaching a semi-finals, as you seem to be suggesting should happen. This would be daft as you'd then have huge swings, which would kind of go towards invalidating the entire point of rankings
The immediately above doesn't invalidate the entire point of rankings, of course. It just makes your preferred system to calculate them less applicable.
I don't make that argument. My preferred system for ranking would be to*A similar argument would say that it would be daft to have Wales ranked ahead of Ireland when we're ahead of Wales in the qualifying group at the moment
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
I've made these points consistently above on this and similar threads.
Fine. We're agreed that FIFA's system is flawed.The only real difference is that FIFA rankings are based on a makey-uppey formula used only by FIFA
I didn't dismiss it (specifically accepting its application elsewhere eg in chess). Again, you've ignored or misunderstood what I actually wrote. 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. Obviously you think the ranking system should do something else. Fine, I disagree. You haven't put a convincing argument that Elo is self-evidently better suited to football ranking.Seriously, your argument doesn't stack up here, not helped by the fact that you admit you don't understand how Elo works. I'm not sure how that makes you qualified to dismiss it
I think I mistakenly quoted you when it should have been John 83 above. Apologies.For the record, I have no professional interest in Elo statistics, and I couldn't give a flying ****e where Ireland are ranked in the world
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