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How do the FIFA rankings work?
http://m.fifa.com/worldranking/rankingtable/index....
Heres a link to their rankings. I don't understand their rankings. Why is Switzerland ranked so high because they are good but not great and Greece is ranked ahead of France! I know you can't base it completely off the World Cup but France would be the favorite over Greece every time they played. And countries like Italy or Uruguay which are ranked lower than Switzerland would be favorites every time against the Swiss. I'm new to soccer, yes I did watch some before the World Cup but still very very very new and it would help if someone explained how FIFA did thier rankings and why it seems like the rankings don't make sense
1 Answer
- Derek MLv 47 years ago
In the rankings, it's all about timing. Spain could beat Greece 10 times in friendlies, but if Greece wins against Spain in the World Cup, they would receive a lot more points than Spain. The rankings reward teams for performing well against tough opponents when it matters most.
Also, the rankings are a mathematical formula based on the past 4 years of games. A formula will never tell you how strong a team is right this moment, as the formula has to catch up and move past the older games where that team may not have done as well. Also with such a large amount of time accounted for, your past results affect your current rank, even if your roster is completely different.
The USA have been ranked higher than Ghana for a while now. Yet in the previous 2 World Cups USA lost to Ghana. Each team is different in how they work, so rankings are not the best way to determine favorites in matches.
In FIFA's rankings, you start with 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and 0 for a loss. You multiply that by:
the importance of the match (ranging from 1 to 4, 1 being friendlies and 4 being World Cup finals)
The strength of your opponent (200 - current ranking, never below 50)
The strength of the confederations (average of the two confederation multipliers, between 0.85 and 1)
How long ago the match was (0-1 year 100%, 1-2 years 50%, 2-3 years 30%, 3-4 years 20%)
Take the average of all matches and that is a team's points.
