Football rankings: 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.

			Already played

incl.	date	match	tournament	I	We (elo)	We (FIFA)	res and exchanged pts
Y	2023-11-27	TAH - SAM	South Pacific Games 2023	5	93	59	W: 2,032/-2,032
Y	2023-11-27	COK - PNG	South Pacific Games 2023	5	7	42	L: -2,077/2,077
N	2023-11-27	NMA - ASA	South Pacific Games 2023	5	43		W: 0,000/0,000
N	2023-11-27	TGA - TUV	South Pacific Games 2023	5	23		L: 0,000/0,000
Y	2023-11-28	FIJ - SOL	South Pacific Games 2023	5	76	38	L: -1,882/1,882
Y	2023-11-28	NCL - VAN	South Pacific Games 2023	5	63	52	W: 2,406/-2,406
Y	2023-11-30	TGA - ASA	South Pacific Games 2023	5	63	46	W: 2,692/-2,692
Y	2023-11-30	PNG - TAH	South Pacific Games 2023	5	47	50	L: -2,481/2,481
Y	2023-11-30	COK - SAM	South Pacific Games 2023	5	48	51	L: -2,527/2,527
N	2023-11-30	TUV - NMA	South Pacific Games 2023	5	85		W: 0,000/0,000
Y	2023-12-01	VAN - FIJ	South Pacific Games 2023	5	38	50	L: -2,520/2,520
Y	2023-12-02	NCL - SOL	South Pacific Games 2023	5	76	40	PSO-W: 1,756/-0,506
Y	2023-12-10	COL - VEN	Friendly 2023	5	77	69	W: 1,575/-1,575

The NT football year 2023 is concluded with this December ranking. A small recap of the year:

Best movers in positions in 2023:

Panama +20 to 41

Moldova +19 to 155

Kazakhstan +15 to 100

Guinea-Bissau +15 to 103

Malaysia +15 to 130

Worst movers in positions in 2023:

Costa Rica -20 to 52

Cyprus -15 to 125

Peru -14 to 35

Best movers in points in 2023:

Panama +84 to 1476

Moldova +64 to 1023

Malaysia +56 to 1123

Worst movers in points in 2023:

Northern Ireland -63 to 1333

Costa Rica -63 to 1438

Bosnia-Herzegovina -60 to 1343

For the December ranking:

No team ends the year on a personal high or low note.

Best movers:

2 - Fiji

1 - Colombia, Cote d'Ivoire, New Caledonia, Tahiti, Samoa

Worst movers:

-2 - Vanuatu

-1 - Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Andorra, Macau

Best movers in the top 50:

1 - Colombia, Cote d'Ivoire

Worst movers in the top 50:

-1 - Mexico, Venezuela

Stay safe and healthy everybody !

pos Dec.	team	pts Dec.	+/- pos	+/- pts
1	Argentina	1855,20	0	0
2	France	1845,44	0	0
3	England	1800,05	0	0
4	Belgium	1798,46	0	0
5	Brazil	1784,09	0	0
6	Netherlands	1745,48	0	0
7	Portugal	1745,06	0	0
8	Spain	1732,64	0	0
9	Italy	1718,82	0	0
10	Croatia	1717,57	0	0
11	Uruguay	1666,00	0	0
12	USA	1665,27	0	0
13	Morocco	1661,69	0	0
14	Colombia	1655,29	1	4,09
15	Mexico	1652,70	-1	-2,52
16	Germany	1631,22	0	0
17	Japan	1620,19	0	0
18	Switzerland	1613,44	0	0
19	Denmark	1601,31	0	0
20	Senegal	1594,31	0	0
21	Iran	1565,08	0	0
22	Ukraine	1553,35	0	0
23	Korea Republic	1550,65	0	0
24	Austria	1546,10	0	0
25	Australia	1539,22	0	0
26	Sweden	1530,19	0	0
27	Hungary	1525,13	0	0
28	Tunisia	1523,23	0	0
29	Wales	1521,88	0	0
30	Algeria	1520,26	0	0
31	Poland	1520,24	0	0
32	Ecuador	1519,20	0	0
33	Egypt	1518,91	0	0
34	Serbia	1517,43	0	0
35	Peru	1512,68	0	0
36	Scotland	1506,89	0	0
37	Turkey	1505,28	0	0
38	Russia	1498,84	0	0
39	Czech Republic	1494,04	0	0
40	Chile	1489,82	0	0
41	Panama	1475,62	0	0
42	Nigeria	1474,44	0	0
43	Romania	1472,73	0	0
44	Norway	1472,36	0	0
45	Slovakia	1465,73	0	0
46	Cameroon	1463,06	0	0
47	Greece	1453,95	0	0
48	Canada	1453,76	0	0
49	Cote d'Ivoire	1447,65	1	0
50	Venezuela	1447,20	-1	-1,57
51	Mali	1445,60	0	0
52	Costa Rica	1437,57	0	0
53	Paraguay	1430,73	0	0
54	Slovenia	1427,84	0	0
55	Jamaica	1421,54	0	0
56	Saudi Arabia	1421,06	0	0
57	Burkina Faso	1411,01	0	0
58	Qatar	1407,30	0	0
59	Finland	1401,31	0	0
60	Republic of Ireland	1399,60	0	0
61	Ghana	1384,19	0	0
62	Albania	1382,69	0	0
63	Iraq	1365,98	0	0
64	United Arab Emirates	1364,46	0	0
65	North Macedonia	1362,17	0	0
66	South Africa	1357,08	0	0
67	Congo DR	1356,67	0	0
68	Uzbekistan	1345,26	0	0
69	Bosnia-Herzegovina	1343,32	0	0
70	Montenegro	1342,64	0	0
71	Iceland	1338,39	0	0
72	Northern Ireland	1333,17	0	0
73	Cape Verde Islands	1329,80	0	0
74	Oman	1324,89	0	0
75	Israel	1323,43	0	0
76	Honduras	1313,80	0	0
77	Georgia	1312,45	0	0
78	El Salvador	1306,14	0	0
79	China PR	1299,49	0	0
80	Guinea	1290,01	0	0
81	Bulgaria	1289,90	0	0
82	Gabon	1289,52	0	0
83	Luxembourg	1285,41	0	0
84	Zambia	1284,56	0	0
85	Bolivia	1284,55	0	0
86	Bahrain	1277,29	0	0
87	Jordan	1272,63	0	0
88	Equatorial Guinea	1268,43	0	0
89	Haiti	1262,50	0	0
90	Curacao	1262,48	0	0
91	Syria	1245,27	0	0
92	Uganda	1245,08	0	0
93	Armenia	1237,15	0	0
94	Vietnam	1235,58	0	0
95	Belarus	1232,80	0	0
96	Trinidad and Tobago	1228,05	0	0
97	Benin	1225,10	0	0
98	Kyrgyzstan	1224,14	0	0
99	Palestine	1217,60	0	0
100	Kazakhstan	1215,16	0	0
101	Kosovo	1202,77	0	0
102	India	1200,80	0	0
103	Guinea-Bissau	1197,83	0	0
104	New Zealand	1197,47	0	0
105	Mauritania	1195,25	0	0
106	Tajikistan	1195,07	0	0
107	Lebanon	1192,58	0	0
108	Guatemala	1189,98	0	0
109	Madagascar	1187,63	0	0
110	Kenya	1181,92	0	0
111	Mozambique	1180,71	0	0
112	Congo	1179,80	0	0
113	Thailand	1176,75	0	0
114	Azerbaijan	1174,22	0	0
115	Namibia	1168,38	0	0
116	Korea DPR	1168,12	0	0
117	Angola	1168,05	0	0
118	Togo	1165,74	0	0
119	Comoros	1156,45	0	0
120	Libya	1155,23	0	0
121	Tanzania	1155,19	0	0
122	Estonia	1149,70	0	0
123	Malawi	1149,40	0	0
124	Zimbabwe	1144,56	0	0
125	Cyprus	1143,42	0	0
126	Gambia	1140,06	0	0
127	Sierra Leone	1138,53	0	0
128	Sudan	1128,74	0	0
129	Niger	1127,75	0	0
130	Malaysia	1122,87	0	0
131	Central African Republic	1121,34	0	0
132	Solomon Islands	1113,57	0	1,37
133	Rwanda	1107,04	0	0
134	Nicaragua	1104,26	0	0
135	Faroe Islands	1102,10	0	0
136	Kuwait	1098,07	0	0
137	Latvia	1097,84	0	0
138	Lithuania	1086,93	0	0
139	Burundi	1086,62	0	0
140	Philippines	1086,17	0	0
141	Turkmenistan	1078,25	0	0
142	Antigua and Barbuda	1072,66	0	0
143	Suriname	1071,85	0	0
144	Ethiopia	1068,79	0	0
145	Botswana	1064,50	0	0
146	Indonesia	1064,01	0	0
147	St. Kitts and Nevis	1057,05	0	0
148	Lesotho	1047,27	0	0
149	Eswatini	1045,88	0	0
150	Hong Kong	1042,93	0	0
151	Dominican Republic	1040,77	0	0
152	Yemen	1027,94	0	0
153	Liberia	1024,11	0	0
154	Chinese Taipei	1023,93	0	0
155	Moldova	1022,60	0	0
156	Singapore	1020,50	0	0
157	Guyana	1018,14	0	0
158	Afghanistan	1017,68	0	0
159	New Caledonia	1008,92	1	4,16
160	Puerto Rico	1007,19	-1	0
161	Maldives	1003,48	0	0
162	Myanmar	1000,46	0	0
163	Tahiti	999,48	1	4,51
164	Andorra	998,00	-1	0
165	Papua New Guinea	990,61	0	-0,40
166	South Sudan	989,29	0	0
167	St. Lucia	988,67	0	0
168	Fiji	981,26	2	0,64
169	Cuba	980,65	0	0
170	Vanuatu	980,33	-2	-4,93
171	Bermuda	972,36	0	0
172	Malta	967,29	0	0
173	St. Vincent and the Grenadines	953,47	0	0
174	Grenada	950,99	0	0
175	Nepal	948,05	0	0
176	Montserrat	946,08	0	0
177	Mauritius	944,95	0	0
178	Barbados	943,80	0	0
179	Cambodia	931,47	0	0
180	Dominica	922,25	0	0
181	Chad	920,37	0	0
182	Belize	918,68	0	0
183	Bangladesh	916,75	0	0
184	Bhutan	913,02	0	0
185	Cook Islands	897,30	0	-4,60
186	Samoa	896,78	1	0,50
187	Macau	896,62	-1	0
188	American Samoa	890,97	0	-2,70
189	Laos	889,62	0	0
190	Mongolia	889,16	0	0
191	Sao Tomé e Príncipe	888,94	0	0
192	Djibouti	881,18	0	0
193	Aruba	879,32	0	0
194	Brunei Darussalam	870,63	0	0
195	Pakistan	856,54	0	0
196	Tonga	856,18	0	2,69
197	Cayman Islands	851,19	0	0
198	Somalia	845,66	0	0
199	Seychelles	845,53	0	0
200	Timor-Leste	843,40	0	0
201	Gibraltar	840,80	0	0
202	Bahamas	835,81	0	0
203	Liechtenstein	833,01	0	0
204	Sri Lanka	822,03	0	0
205	Guam	821,91	0	0
206	Turks and Caicos Islands	818,57	0	0
207	British Virgin Islands	807,57	0	0
208	US Virgin Islands	796,78	0	0
209	Anguilla	785,69	0	0
210	San Marino	741,61	0	0

About me:

Software engineer, happily unmarried and non-religious. You won't find me on Twitter or other so called social media. Dutchman, joined the blog in March 2018.

8 comments:

EdDecember 21, 2023 at 9:43 PM
How about that! No need to extra include or exclude matches for this December ranking. The final preview above turned out to be exactly what FIFA published. That's a first for me :)
AnonymousDecember 22, 2023 at 9:22 AM
hello are you going to simulate results and points for the African Cup? Tanks you
EdDecember 22, 2023 at 12:08 PM
Done already. See here.
AnonymousDecember 26, 2023 at 4:56 PM
How did you come to +12,487966052047 for Congo DR?
It looks to be a little to much.
AnonymousDecember 27, 2023 at 10:42 AM
The ranking against Gabon 18/6-2023 would be 1351,110429478 instead of 1338,610429478
This gives Congo DR 11,20069507 ranking instead of 11,4979556 ranking for this match.
The right addition should therefore be 12,20273946, would I mean.
AnonymousDecember 27, 2023 at 3:17 PM
Sorry fellow. That’s gives all too much to the other site.
The regulation must be between 12,475502 and 12,486303 to give Congo DR a current ranking of 1356,66. Even in the first case, it doesn’t bring other countries away from the right ranking.
First of all, I wonder, why FIFA changes the results so long time after the games has been played.
Secondly, why doesn’t FIFA just change the original game calculation, although it affects those countries the involved lands have played against in the meanwhile?
It is so little different, but it is more correct; as it would have been so, in the case FIFA immediately had discovered the need to change the result.
EdDecember 27, 2023 at 6:13 PM
When FIFA afterwards find a reason to alter the result of a match in a later ranking, it's often because they received information (most of the time a -belated- official match report) after they have calculated and published the ranking the match was originally included in. Most common reasons to alter a match result are:
- a team fielded an ineligible player and the other team got the match awarded;
- the referee turned out to be not FIFA approved;
- there were more than the maximum 6 allowed substitutes per team in a friendly;
- a match was abandoned after f.i. crowd trouble and a decision about the outcome could only be made later on, so the match was included in a later ranking.

The way to proceed in these cases was always that FIFA used the FIFA-points of each involved team at the moment the decision to alter the match result was taken, and calculated the points to exchange between the teams, given the adapted match result. A correction term was then calculated as the difference between the points exchanged for the match in the original ranking and the new calculated points exchanged after the decision to alter the match result. This calculated correction term was applied on each team's FIFA-points right before the calculation of the included matches in the current ranking starts.

However, since March this year in the few cases that instigated a correction to be applied, the correction term was always slightly different than when this protocol was followed to the letter. At the appropriate places I have described that in the comment section of the post of the final preview of such a ranking. I can't think of the method they have adapted apparently as their new protocol.

Anyway, to match their published ranking for each team on two decimals, I still calculate the correction term the way I was used to and adapt an extra correction (most of the time a few hundredths to a few tenths of a point) to land on exactly their -on 2 decimals rounded- published points total.

The effect is that now and then I have a few teams with a (maximum) 0.01 difference compared to their published points. In this December ranking it were Uruguay, Congo DR and Mozambique.

Why doesn't FIFA just change the original game calculation? Because they don't want to recalculate (and republish) in the meantime published rankings again.
What I don't understand in their recalculation protocol is why they don't use the starting points of the involved teams at the moment the match was originally played and only alter the match result in the recalculation.

I would love to read FIFA's explanation of their recalculation protocol and their answers to these little questions, but I've given up mailing them about it, because I never receive an answer anyway.

So, my readers, if any of you has some deeper thoughts or suggestions about this topic... I'm curious :)
AnonymousDecember 28, 2023 at 11:38 AM
The cases Benin-Rwanda and Congo DR-Mauritania are very similar.
In both cases the original regulation is about +/-3,5 ranking.
All 4 countries play 1 match in between the FIFA regulations.
Although in the later case the regulation is very near the fully 12,50 adjustments.
In the first case the adjustments are over 0,4 from that. More than 3%.
It can only be the match in between, that decide how much?
Congo DR and Mauritania both win against equal opponents.
Benin draw and Rwanda lose to stronger opponents.

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

FIFA ranking: December 2023 final preview

8 comments: