I was hoping you might know, Swinford.
FYI, not sure if posted before. Useful site below, seems to calculate world rankings "live":
https://www.fctables.com/fifa-rankings/
How are Netherlands 20th when they've failed to qualify for the last two tournaments?
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FIFA rankings are in an 8 year cycle. I'd say they'll fall off a cliff edge come next year.
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Probably tumble over a dyke .
They'll move up to 20th (from 29th) on Monday, aided by victories over Belarus and Sweden, but it does seem very high for a team who have been stuttering through qualification and who have failed to make even the play-offs two campaigns in a row. They finished third in their group this campaign and fourth in the last campaign, having picked up only 13 points and lost 5 games.
The Elo rating actually has them ranked 13th in the world, which is even more surprising to me.
Key:
FUBAR (Floreat Ultonia's Boolean Algorithm)
Teams are ranked by points won only in WC 2018 qualifying
FIFA
All games since October 2013 count towards ranking, with greater weighting for more recent and lesser for friendlies
UEFA
All and only competitive games since September 2012 count, with lesser weighting for those before September 2014. The 'Nations League' draw is based on this ranking and is color-coded
Elo
Similar to system used to rank chess players globally
it should be about where you finish in your last campaign(s). And anything that says Boolean in an algorithm for calculation is definitely on a hiding to nothing.
We should be 2nd seeds for next qualifying, but something tells me after the loss to Serbia we probably wont be, although a qualification play-off win might help achieve that.
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Confirmed, risen to 26th in the latest rankings: http://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranki...men/index.html
From here:
http://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranki...ols/index.html
2 wins (!) could bring us to 1344, which would bring us up to 5th!
I did a bit of analysis on their Elo rating (seeing as I don't really understand the FIFA calculations) to see why they're still 13th. I also compared them to Ireland and Iceland, who both qualified for the Euros, and who've made the play-offs and the World Cup proper, yet who are both ranked below Holland. (The comparison could be done with any countries if anyone else wants to do some maths). I've taken the World Cup Final as my starting point - so that's 35 games for Holland, 38 for us and 43 for Iceland. The Elo guys reckon 30 games is enough for a rating to converge; I think it's more and that the 2014 World Cup still has some impact on the rankings. But it won't be much.
After the World Cup, the ratings were -
Holland 2137 (3 in the world)
Ireland 1667 (42 in the world)
Iceland 1515 (76 in the world)
By comparison, the current ratings are -
Holland 1854 (13 in the world)
Ireland 1750 (18 in the world)
Iceland 1822 (24 in the world)
So first observation - Holland have dropped almost 300 points, which is a hell of a lot. They've just done so from a very high starting point.
I've split each country's results into 6 categories - friendlies 2014/15, Euro qualifiers, pre-Euro friendlies, Euro 2016, World Cup qualifiers and 2016/17 friendlies - and looked at their rating performance in each category -
Basically, if the only games Ireland played were the ones in Euro 2016, we would have a rating of 1766, or if the only games Iceland played were friendlies pre-Euro 2016, their rating would be 1403.Code:Fr Euro Q Euro16 Fr WC Q Fr Holland 1753 1555 1861 1711 1878 Ireland 1898 1767 1766 1763 1739 1706 Iceland 1496 1813 1909 1403 1843 1746
So Holland had an awful Euro 2016 campaign, and though they improved for the World Cup, they still performed worse than Iceland and, albeit marginally, Ireland. So why aren't they rated behind either of us?
I think the key is the friendlies - there's fewer friendlies than qualifiers (15 of Holland's 35 games in the sample are friendlies), and they impact the ratings less, but Holland's recent friendly form is way above either Iceland or Ireland. It includes wins over Spain, England, Wales, Poland and Austria, which are results they'd love to have in qualifying. Ireland, meanwhile, have lost to Belarus and Iceland, and have only really beaten the US and Uruguay of note. Iceland's friendly form is actually terrible - they lost 6 of 9 friendlies in the run-up to Euro 2016, for example, against Poland, Slovakia, the UAE, the US, Denmark and Norway. (One of their wins was against Liechtenstein) Similarly, post World Cup, they drew with Canada and Estonia.
It's obviously only fair that friendlies impact the ratings, and they do so at a much lower level than competitive games (for which there's twice as many points on offer), but still, their friendly form is very good.
I also think the 2014 World Cup has some residual impact; their recent form has been below their rating, which would indicate they will continue to slide. Ireland's is too, which is why we're down 10 points in the last year, while Iceland's form in friendlies post the Euros has improved, albeit only over 5 games.
If the Elo system's 'selling point' is that it's devised by mathematicians you'd think that convergence figure would be a bit more precise. It clearly isn't as per PAS's worked example above. Here's another: NI have played 33 games since WC 2014 (24 competitive, 9 friendlies), yet we're ranked below Scotland despite a much better competitive record.
Why is it obviously fair that friendlies impact the rating? Does that mean that for that reason alone UEFA's alternative is unfair?
It's obviously fair that friendlies impact a rating because they're valid senior internationals. It's also fair that they don't count for as much as qualifiers, which they don't.
The North have gone from 300 points behind Scotland in June 2014 to 50 points behind now. Scotland have also been on a good run of form lately and only scored one point less in 2018 qualifying - so hardly a "much better" record for the North. (2016 is different obviously)
But the North's friendly record is appalling; wins over New Zealand, Slovenia, Latvia and that's it. Scotland by contrast have beaten the Czech Republic, Denmark, the North and Qatar (who drew with the North)
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