FIFA ranking: December 2023 final preview

FIFA will publish the December ranking next Thursday December 21st. This final preview contains 11 matches, out of 14 matches played since November 27th: the complete knock-out stage of the Pacific Games 2023 and one friendly. 

I expect both forfeited knock-out matches of the Cook Islands to be included. They apparently had to leave the Solomon Islands after the two matches in the group stage and didn't participate in the play-offs for the 5th place in the competition.

One other friendly Colombia - Mexico is scheduled for coming Saturday and it will be included also. This is how the points and positions of both teams could change:

	COL		MEX
result	pts	pos	pts	pos
COL win	1655,29	14	1652,70	15
draw	1652,79	15	1655,20	14
MEX win	1650,29	15	1657,70	14

Elo predicts a Colombia win.

Asian Cup of Nations 2023 simulations (December 2023)

In 2024 five of the six confederations have scheduled their continental championship for national teams. Here's number two in this series of simulation reports: Asia.

The Asian Cup of Nations 2023 was initially scheduled for June 2023 in Qatar. Just as with the World Cup last year the tournament couldn't be played in the Qatari Summer because it's much too hot there in that time of the year. So the continental showpiece had to be moved back to January 2024. That gave Qatar the opportunity to participate 'as guest' (or rather as the generous tournament sponsor who bought their berth) in the Gold Cup 2023 in the USA last July.

African Cup of Nations 2023 simulations (December 2023)

In 2024 five of the six confederations have scheduled their continental championship for national teams. To kick off a series of simulation reports I start with Africa.

The African Cup of Nations 2023 was initially scheduled for June 2023 in Ivory Coast. Much to the delight of several European top clubs, who otherwise would miss quite a few African top players from mid December to mid February during an important part of their domestic competition, CAF had already in 2019 decided to schedule the AFCON from that moment on in June instead of the usual month of January. 

However, with assigning the tournament to a tropical country (again), it became clear very soon that, just like the previous edition in Cameroon, the continental showpiece in 2023 had to be moved back to January 2024 due to unfavorable climatic conditions in the tropical Summer. Conditions really nobody could foresee...