2014 World Cup (qualifiers and final tournament) - 20% of total weighting
EURO 2016 (qualifiers and final tournament) - 40% of total weighting
2018 World Cup (qualifiers) - 40% of total weighting.
With the EURO 2016 behind us, here's a look at team movements.
Changes since the November 2015 update.
Croatia, Poland and Wales replace Netherlands, Russia and Ukraine in League A.
Best movers:
12 - Wales
8 - Poland
7 - Iceland
Worst movers:
-5: Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Romania, Sweden
Most points gained:
5009 - France
4049 - Portugal
3130 - Wales
Ukraine are the only team to actually lose points (-67). Remember I already included EURO 2016 matches as loses for all 24 teams. Ukraine lost all 3.
1 1 Germany 27966 2 5 Portugal 27294 3 9 France 27168 4 4 Belgium 26181 5 2 England 25530 6 3 Spain 25449 7 7 Italy 24965 8 8 Switzerland 23865 9 6 Austria 23378 10 14 Croatia 22918 11 19 Poland 22701 12 24 Wales 22328 ---------------------------------- 13 20 Iceland 22174 14 10 Netherlands 22085 15 12 Russia 21555 16 11 Ukraine 21406 17 21 Hungary 21286 18 13 Bosnia and Herzegovina 21179 19 18 Slovakia 21154 20 15 Czech Republic 20887 21 16 Romania 20817 22 17 Sweden 20546 23 22 Republic of Ireland 20528 24 23 Turkey 20517 ---------------------------------- 25 28 Northern Ireland 19307 26 30 Albania 19290 27 25 Slovenia 19047 28 26 Norway 18987 29 27 Denmark 18811 30 29 Scotland 18361 31 31 Israel 18091 32 32 Montenegro 17351 33 33 Greece 17111 34 34 Bulgaria 16991 35 35 Finland 16981 36 36 Serbia 16246 37 37 Lithuania 15961 38 38 Cyprus 15671 39 39 Belarus 15168 ---------------------------------- 40 40 Estonia 15160 41 41 Georgia 14643 42 42 Azerbaijan 13941 43 43 Armenia 13365 44 44 Latvia 13241 45 45 Moldova 12710 46 46 FYR Macedonia 12671 47 47 Kazakhstan 12631 48 48 Luxembourg 12191 49 49 Faroe Islands 12130 50 50 Liechtenstein 11710 51 51 Malta 10910 52 55 Kosovo 10000 53 52 San Marino 9170 54 53 Andorra 9060 55 54 Gibraltar 8650
League A
Pot 1: Germany, Portugal, France, Belgium
Pot 2: England, Spain, Italy, Switzerland
Pot 3: Austria, Croatia, Poland, Wales
League B
Pot 1: Iceland, Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine
Pot 2: Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovakia, Czech Republic
Pot 3: Romania, Sweden, Republic of Ireland, Turkey
League C
Pot 1: Northern Ireland, Albania, Slovenia, Norway
Pot 2: Denmark, Scotland, Israel, Montenegro
Pot 3: Greece, Bulgaria, Finland, Serbia
Pot 4: Lithuania, Cyprus, Belarus
League D
Pot 1: Estonia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia
Pot 2: Latvia, Moldova, FYR Macedonia, Kazakhstan
Pot 3: Luxembourg, Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein, Malta
Pot 4: Kosovo, San Marino, Andorra, Gibraltar
Hi Edgar,
ReplyDeleteThank you for all your posts.
What will happen to Russia, given that it does not need to participate in the WC 2018 qualifiers? Are they just going to stay at their current points? Or will the friendlies they play in some qualifying group (now that Kosovo took their place) be used?
Thanks
Tim
Tim, for the UEFA NT-coefficient only WC- and EURO-qualifiers and WC- and EURO-finals matches are included.
DeleteFor Russia, not playing WC18-qualifiers, their coefficient remains steady now at 29876 until the WC18. This coefficient is calculated with their EURO16-qualifying results substituted for their missing WC18-qualifying results.
Edgar, I have Switzerland at 23865 ?
ReplyDeleteMe too.
DeleteDo you include Euro16 qualifying play-offs?
ReplyDeleteHi Edgar,
ReplyDeletetwo things about the coefficients.
1. Switzerland. As other readers have already noticed, their coeff should be 23865.
2. Russia. Why do you count Russia 2016 qualifying points for 2018 qualifying? In the National team ranking 2015, for analogical case of France, French 2016 cycle was not adjusted according to their results of 2014 qualifying. The UEFA regulations, as far as I know, haven't changed since, so there is no ground to assume that Russian 2016 qualifying cycle would be doubled. And there is no practical need for UEFA to do that, because WC 2018 Final tournament would not be counted for any team, and Russia will not have neither advantage nor disadvantage if their 2018 cycle is not calculated (as in France case, there total points will be divided not by 5, but by 3). Therefore Russian final coeff for NT 2017 ranking will be 29258.
In the latest regulations (Regulations of the UEFA European Football Championship 2014-16) there are two articles that could both be applied on the calculation of the host's points.
ReplyDeleteB.3 Particular cases
a. For associations that have not participated in certain cycles in the relevant reference period, only cycles (and/or the half cycle) in which they were involved are taken into account with their respective weighting factor. The final result is divided by the sum of the weighting factors of the cycles (and/or the half cycle) concerned.
b. In the case of an association that has hosted a UEFA EURO or FIFA World Cup final tournament during one of the reference periods as mentioned under Annex B.1.2 and therefore has no points from the respective qualifying competition, the points earned in the most recent qualifying competition in which the association has taken part are used.
In Annex B.1.2 the following reference periods are mentioned:
a. Qualifying draw
– 2010 FIFA World Cup (qualifying competition and final tournament)
– UEFA EURO 2012 (qualifying competition and final tournament)
– 2014 FIFA World Cup (qualifying competition: group stage and play-offs)
For the draw of the UEFA Nations League 2018/2019 (4 years later) these reference periods could be translated to:
– 2014 FIFA World Cup (qualifying competition and final tournament)
– UEFA EURO 2016 (qualifying competition and final tournament)
– 2018 FIFA World Cup (qualifying competition: group stage and play-offs)
Mantas, now that you mention it, it indeed is a difficult issue. Exact reading of the phrase "that has hosted a UEFA EURO or FIFA World Cup final tournament during one of the reference periods" implies that only hosts of a tournament that has been played already, are indicated with B.3.b., so not Russia.
One could also read it as "any host of a tournament mentioned under B.1.2" are indicated with B.3.b (and that is how I read it), so yes Russia.
You certainly got a point anyway with your analogy of France in the 2015 UEFA NT-ranking. For France their missing EURO16 qualifying results were not substituted with their WC14 qualifying results to calculate their 33599 points in October 2015.
However, that ranking was used for the draw of the EURO16 final tournament (and not for the EURO16 qualifiers) and had the following reference periods:
b. Play-off and final tournament draws
– UEFA EURO 2012 (qualifying competition and final tournament)
– 2014 FIFA World Cup (qualifying competition and final tournament)
– UEFA EURO 2016 (qualifying competition: group matches)
The NT-ranking of november 2013 was used to seed the draw for the EURO16 qualifiers and as Brazil was WC14 host that ranking had no uncertainties about how to handle the host, so (unfortunately) can't be used as a guide how to interpret this issue.
Edgar, anybody else ?
As far as I understand, one of the key words in the paragraph Annex B.3.b is "respective": "In the case of an association that has hosted a UEFA EURO or FIFA World Cup final tournament during one of the reference periods as mentioned under Annex B.1.2 and therefore has no points from the RESPECTIVE qualifying competition, the points earned in the most recent qualifying competition in which the association has taken part are used."
ReplyDeleteThe Annex B.1.2 says that the half cycle was only EURO 2016 qualifying (and not EURO 2016 Final tournament). So, for NT ranking 2017, the final half cycle would be WC 2018 qualifying (and not WC 2018 Final tournament respectively). It should mean that Annex B.3.b does not talk about WC 2018 Final tournament at all, because it is not included in the "reference period" concept, and therefore the Annex B.3.b for 2017 NT ranking, to my mind, is about the hosts of WC 2014 and EURO 2016 only.
Also, I agree that the regulations does not clearly state such cases, but the common sense suggests that there is no need for Russia to copy their 2016 qualifying results to 2018 qualifying, because WC 2018 Final tournament will not be counted for any team anyway, and therefore there will not be any discrepancies for Russia case (differently than France 2016 cycle in NT 2017 ranking, where 2018 qualifying is counted for their 2016 non-played qualifying in order that they would not have the advantage over other countries if their only EURO 2016 Final results had been counted).
This is my interpretation only though, and we need more expert opinions about this issue, so any reasonable commments and explanations would be very appreciated :)
Mantas, I tend to agree with you. Your reasoning seems logical.
DeleteBy the way Footballseeding.com sees it the way I used to: UEFA NT-ranking 2017
Ed, I also saw this in Footballseeding.com and wrote them too to explained my position. But their response was brief and didn't provide any better understanding, why do they use such methodology:
Delete"Russian coefficients should be correct - according to newest regulations [link to Regulations of the UEFA European Football Championship 2014-16] which mention national ranking (page 51)."
So, they just interpret the rules the other way. But I bet my version should be correct :) We need to wait the official updated ranking by UEFA, which I hope will be published soon.
Hi, Ed!
ReplyDeleteI want to support Mantas Ste.
By the way, the calculation of Edgar for Russia, if we discard the minimum points for QT'18 (4000 points) and multiply by 5/3 will result 29258 points.
I got a clear impression that this Nations League will denote to the likes of Germany and France not much more than a savourless friendly tournament, and it's likely to become an uninteresting competition that exists just to fill some pockets and to deal with politics. That's because what are the odds of happening again what happened with Netherlands last Euro Qualifiers? In any case, if the big team in question does not qualify they would probably get in the play-offs confident enough to play teams from a lower division, almost midway the bottom, as the slots for the play-offs drop down to the weaker leagues due the majority of their closest rivals being already through. And considering the opposite, if all or almost all the best teams are expected to have no trouble in the qualifiers, why would one of them strain to win the NL final four anyway or even worry about not getting there? In the majority of cases the final ranking of Nations League wouldn't make any difference for them, so the only purpose of that would be for training and exhibition in "decisive" fancy matches but pointless in the end. It's true that for teams usually ranked at the middle and for the minnows that system really may work, providing them another chance (maybe even when they barely are somewhat competitive) and of course we like the idea of a secondary international tournament in Europe, but this one got a lot of issues.
ReplyDeleteHi, Gabriell2,
DeleteYou are a bit wrong that "In the majority of cases the final ranking of Nations League wouldn't make any difference for them, so the only purpose of that would be for training and exhibition in "decisive" fancy matches but pointless in the end."
The usual qualification torunament for Euro 2020 will start after the Nations league group stage finishes, and the seeding for Euro 2020 qualifying will be based according to the perforamance of the teams in the Nations league. Please check here: http://www.footballseeding.com/international-tournaments/euro-2020/
Also, participants of the NL Final four will be assured that they will be drawn into groups of 5, not groups of 6 in Euro 2020 qualifying, which is also at least small, but advantage: they will play one or two matches in June 2019 (Final four) against strong opponents for a trophy, instead of playing qualifiers against the likes of San Marino or Andorra.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteOkay, then. But still I think it's a huge change in the schedule to get so few advantages. For less traditional countries could not be good if the number of friendlies were reduced to a little amount. Other than two matches of that final four and the qualifier's draw afterwards based on it there's not so much in the stake, at least I think so. It could be easy to adapt this ideia of leagues they had and create a very good qualifying tournament that would make it reasonably dangerous for high profile teams (they'd need to play seriously, with full strength until the last match to avoid either have to settle for play-offs or failing to qualify) and also with middle-lower teams having a good chance. Four leagues and each one of them receiving a guaranteed spot is lame because potentially good teams in the midway from top to bottom will be out, while the best teams from League D which are still too weak, Azerbaijan, Lativa, Belarus, whatever they are, certainly they will be at a major tournament only to be whipping boys and not having a realistic chance of going through the group stage.
DeleteWhat if League C and D were merged into only one division with more spots allocated to it so transforming it straight into Euro Qualifiers for teams ranked below 30th position? It could make both UEFA Nations League and qualifying tournaments more balanced and competitive because big teams would play big teams so as weak teams playing each other with less predictable matches. UEFA should avoid expand tournaments or create new ones which hand over easier routes for weaker teams and make things more complex but with many of the competitive issues still unsolved.
DeleteThe system used in some last editions of Qualifying, one play-off round, is much better than allocate the same number of direct spots to each one of the leagues as they were equal. In that case some berths for the play-off round should be contested by bottom league's 30 teams so they still would have chance, playing the lowest ranked teams of League B (they could even maintain the current UEFA Nations League format for divisions A and B and after all teams would enter a separate Euro/WC qualifying tournament, it seems there is enough space in the calendar for this amount of matches) and that's it.
DeleteCorrection: in the system described League C teams would be ranked from 25th through the last one.
Deletegood
ReplyDelete