FIFA will publish the official ranking on March 16.
I've seen some people wondering if USWNT would lose the top spot in the rankings after losing against Japan in the Algarve Cup. It was close. Before March 7th, USA had only 1 point over Germany, but they got 10 more after defeating Sweden 4 - 0.
Germany needed to win 2 - 0 against Japan or by 3 goals if Japan managed to score. Final score: 4 - 3 for the Germans and USA are now 3 points ahead of them.
Japan would have needed to defeat Germany 6 - 0 in order to claim 2nd place.
Here's the top 100.
March 2012 rank - Team - March 2012 points - +/- Ranking - +/- Points
| 1 | USA | 2165 | 0 | 17 |
| 2 | Germany | 2162 | 0 | 19 |
| 3 | Japan | 2114 | 0 | 8 |
| 4 | Brazil | 2093 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | Sweden | 2059 | 0 | -14 |
| 6 | France | 2019 | 0 | 29 |
| 7 | Canada | 1970 | 0 | -19 |
| 7 | Korea DPR | 1970 | 2 | 3 |
| 9 | England | 1966 | -1 | -17 |
| 10 | Australia | 1956 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 | Italy | 1936 | 0 | -1 |
| 12 | Denmark | 1914 | 0 | 6 |
| 13 | Norway | 1900 | -1 | -8 |
| 14 | Netherlands | 1888 | 0 | -9 |
| 15 | Iceland | 1851 | 0 | -3 |
| 16 | Spain | 1842 | 1 | 1 |
| 17 | Korea Republic | 1840 | -1 | -5 |
| 18 | China PR | 1827 | 0 | -4 |
| 19 | Russia | 1820 | 0 | 8 |
| 20 | Finland | 1797 | 0 | -5 |
| 21 | Scotland | 1776 | 1 | 6 |
| 22 | Mexico | 1767 | -1 | -7 |
| 22 | Ukraine | 1767 | 1 | 0 |
| 24 | New Zealand | 1753 | 0 | 1 |
| 25 | Czech Republic | 1730 | 1 | 0 |
| 26 | Switzerland | 1727 | -1 | -6 |
| 27 | Nigeria | 1686 | 0 | 0 |
| 28 | Colombia | 1654 | 0 | 0 |
| 29 | Thailand | 1645 | 1 | 0 |
| 30 | Vietnam | 1641 | 1 | 0 |
| 31 | Republic of Ireland | 1636 | -2 | -10 |
| 32 | Poland | 1634 | 1 | 4 |
| 33 | Belgium | 1629 | -1 | -10 |
| 34 | Argentina | 1609 | 1 | 0 |
| 35 | Hungary | 1599 | -1 | -11 |
| 36 | Romania | 1585 | 0 | 0 |
| 37 | Slovakia | 1581 | 2 | 8 |
| 38 | Belarus | 1579 | -1 | -4 |
| 39 | Austria | 1576 | -1 | -1 |
| 40 | Costa Rica | 1567 | 1 | 10 |
| 41 | Uzbekistan | 1565 | -1 | 0 |
| 42 | Portugal | 1557 | 1 | 2 |
| 43 | Chinese Taipei | 1556 | -1 | 0 |
| 44 | Serbia | 1547 | 0 | 0 |
| 44 | Wales | 1547 | 2 | 16 |
| 46 | Chile | 1544 | -1 | 0 |
| 47 | Myanmar | 1523 | 0 | 0 |
| 48 | Trinidad and Tobago | 1500 | 0 | 0 |
| 49 | Papua New Guinea | 1491 | 3 | 44 |
| 50 | Ecuador | 1484 | -1 | 0 |
| 51 | Ghana | 1468 | -1 | 11 |
| 52 | Peru | 1450 | -1 | 0 |
| 53 | India | 1438 | 0 | 0 |
| 54 | Northern Ireland | 1435 | 0 | -2 |
| 55 | Bulgaria | 1434 | 0 | 0 |
| 56 | Equatorial Guinea | 1431 | 0 | 0 |
| 56 | Iran | 1431 | 0 | 0 |
| 58 | Paraguay | 1430 | 0 | 0 |
| 59 | Jordan | 1405 | 1 | 0 |
| 60 | Cameroon | 1404 | 1 | 0 |
| 61 | Haiti | 1397 | 1 | 1 |
| 62 | Greece | 1393 | -3 | -20 |
| 63 | Slovenia | 1386 | 0 | 0 |
| 64 | Israel | 1380 | 1 | 0 |
| 65 | Croatia | 1376 | -1 | -8 |
| 66 | South Africa | 1373 | 0 | 7 |
| 67 | Turkey | 1356 | 0 | 0 |
| 68 | Indonesia | 1346 | 0 | 0 |
| 69 | Uruguay | 1344 | 0 | 0 |
| 70 | Hong Kong | 1342 | 0 | 0 |
| 71 | Azerbaijan | 1341 | 0 | 0 |
| 72 | Bahrain | 1339 | 2 | 0 |
| 73 | Morocco | 1338 | -1 | -2 |
| 73 | Venezuela | 1338 | 2 | 0 |
| 75 | Kazakhstan | 1332 | 1 | 0 |
| 76 | Estonia | 1328 | 1 | 0 |
| 77 | Tunisia | 1325 | 1 | 2 |
| 78 | Algeria | 1320 | 1 | 0 |
| 79 | Faroe Islands | 1318 | 1 | 0 |
| 80 | Tonga | 1316 | -8 | -24 |
| 81 | Guatemala | 1310 | 4 | 17 |
| 82 | Fiji | 1306 | -1 | 0 |
| 83 | Guam | 1300 | 0 | 0 |
| 83 | Lithuania | 1300 | 0 | 0 |
| 85 | Laos | 1292 | 1 | 0 |
| 86 | Egypt | 1289 | -4 | -15 |
| 87 | Bosnia-Herzegovina | 1267 | 4 | 20 |
| 88 | Philippines | 1264 | -1 | 0 |
| 89 | Guyana | 1256 | -1 | 0 |
| 89 | Malaysia | 1256 | -1 | 0 |
| 91 | Tahiti | 1238 | 1 | 0 |
| 92 | Bolivia | 1236 | 1 | 0 |
| 93 | Dominican Republic | 1225 | -5 | -31 |
| 94 | Latvia | 1220 | 0 | 0 |
| 95 | Mali | 1204 | 0 | -11 |
| 96 | Cuba | 1201 | 0 | 1 |
| 97 | Singapore | 1195 | 0 | 0 |
| 97 | Solomon Islands | 1195 | 0 | 0 |
| 99 | Palestine | 1189 | 0 | 0 |
| 100 | New Caledonia | 1188 | 0 | 0 |
How did you calculate this? I found the official .pdf to be very lacking.
ReplyDeletee.g. the function to calculate P(x) seems wrong (P(0)=1 when it should be 0.5) and how do you know the exact "scaling factor" they mention?
It would be great if you could tell me how you did this.
The P (x) formula is indeed wrong. I had to do a bit of reverse engineering to find the exact formula (same as the one used for the Elo ratings), then I used it to compute the December ranking.
ReplyDeleteThe differences are minimal.
So, it's just the just the formula of the Elo ratings? O dear, I should have thought of that myself.
ReplyDeleteThanks, now I can finally calculate these things myself.
"teams without an official ranking"
ReplyDeleteThere are several issues with this, as I am sure you know. I asked FIFA about this because Iraq was ranked ahead of Lebanon (in the "teams without an official ranking" list) - which is actually 2 lists - one where teams haven't played enough games, and one where teams haven't played in the last 4 years. There was consideration given to abolishing this extra part of the ranking - after all, it doesn't really show anything useful.
Iraq was ranked ahead of Lebanon based on 3 results - all of which were defeats - 0-20 v Jordan, 0-15 v Egypt and most amazing of all - 0-9 v Lebanon!
For some reason, FIFA has removed Jordan's first 2 matches from this Arabian tournament (20-0 v Iraq and 3-1 v Lebanon) played on 19.10.2010 and 21.10.2010 respectively, but have retained all of the rest of Jordan's games in this tournament. They've also removed Palestine 18-0 Qatar on 20.10.2010 in the same tournament and also Syria 12-0 Qatar on 22.10.2010. Qatar's 0-17 defeat to Bahrain on 18.10.2010 is OK, however, and stays on the list.
One other issue is - what are the start ELO ratings given to teams? Botswana and Tanzania, in particular, seem to have come off pretty badly in this regard. Botswana are at the bottom of the rankings, despite having posted an away victory over Olympic-bound South Africa less than a year ago, while Tanzania have recently competed at the African Championship finals, and since last year, have managed wins against Namibia (twice), Malawi, Botswana, Zambia and draws with South Africa, and Zimbabwe (twice). All this sees them just 2 positions above Iraq, who have lost all 8 matches they have ever played, with a combined goal difference of 1:73.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Tanzania are ranked 2 places below Pakistan, whose only wins have came against unranked Afghanistan (so no points for that) and Maldives, along with an awarded win against Sri Lanka. Apart from that, they've lost 12-0 and 7-0 to Nepal, and 8-0 and 6-0 to India. Hardly justifies being ranked above a team who can compete with South Africa...
There is certainly something not quite right with the calculation of points...
Still waiting for a reply from FIFA regarding the errors...
ReplyDeleteI'm still waiting on a reply regarding the problems with "initial values" and the seemingly huge amount of effort needed by Tanzania to break away from the bottom of the ranking.
ReplyDeleteI got a reply regarding the 4 Arabian Cup matches that had been removed - there was an error with FIFA.com apparently, and the matches have now been put back on. I don't know whether the error would have been picked up automatically at the next ranking or not. I only discovered they were missing when I was writing one of the replies above...
Why Afghanistan's points did not increase after they defeated Qatar 3-0 on Feb 16?
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteBoth Qatar and Afghanistan have a provisional ranking only.
The ranking of a team is deemed official when they have played at least 5 matches against teams with an official ranking.