Off Topic FIFA Rankings Calculations Explained

[rafa]

FIFA has recently drawn the qualification groups for the 2014 World Cup to be held in Brazil. Besides all the stir about France and Spain being paired together, there were a lot of questions mostly left unanswered.

For example:

• 
  
  
• Why France was in the second pot, while the likes of Norway and Greece were in the first pot?
  
• How come Wales is in the last pot, behind the likes of Macedonia, Azerbaijan and Faroe Islands?
  
• Why FIFA spent £18M on this event?
  

Well, I really can't answer the last question. But the answer to the previous questions are related to the famed FIFA World Ranking. Basically, FIFA ranks the teams according to its own magical formulas. Every month a new ranking is released and, based on July rankings, we got to know that: France is worse than Greece, Faroe Islands boasts a slightly better football than Wales and San Marino is the worst team in the world.

So the real question is: How does FIFA calculate these rankings?

And I introduce you to the:

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FIFA World Ranking for dummies - How the magic numbers are calculated?

If you're intending to manage a tiny Oceanic national squad to unimaginable success, this guide is for you! The logic behind the calculations is rather simple: any team that does well in their matches wins points. The more points your team gathers, the higher your placement in the ranks. And the beautiful thing is: Higher ranking positions equals smaller possibilities of facing tougher World Cup Qualifications Groups.

1. The basics

• 
  
  
• Only results from the last four years count. So it's senseless for Capello to blame Erikson for England's current position.
  
• Half of your points is the average number of points gained during the last 12 months. The other half is an average of points gained from matches older than 12 months and points depreciate yearly.
  

What have we learned so far: Don't worry too much about the previous form of Vanuatu. If they win the next game, they are set to soar up in the rankings!

2. The magical formula - Calculation of points for a single match

The formula is actually very easy. It involves:

• 
  
  
• The result of the Match (win, draw or loss)
  
• The Importance of the match (world cup, friendly, etc.)
  
• The strength of the opposing Team
  
• The Confederation of the opposing team
  

The multiplication of these factors gives the total number of Points:

P = M x I x T x C

Here are the values for you to fill in:

M: Points for match result

Nothing mysterious here. It's just like your premier league result: 3 points for a victory, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a defeat. If a match goes to penalties, the winning team gets 2 points and the losing team 1 point.

Remember: If your team loses, there's no point in calculating anything

I: Importance of match

• 
  
  
• I = 1.0 - Friendly match (including small competitions):
  
• I = 2.5 - World Cup qualifier or confederation-level qualifier:
  
• I = 3.0 - Confederation-level final competition or Confederations Cup:
  
• I = 4.0 - World Cup final competition:
  

Remember: Your team should always try harder to win World Cup matches, as they are worth 4 times more points then a Friendly

T: Strength of opposing team

Another easy formula for you to calculate:

T = 200 - R

Where R is the current ranking position of your opponent. Exceptions to this formula:

• 
  
  
• The top ranked team T value is always 200
  
• Teams ranked 150th and below have a T value of 50
  

Remember: A victory against Spain gives you four times more points than a victory against India. But a victory against India is worthy the same as a victory against Bhutan

C: Strength of confederation

FIFA assign strength coefficients to confederations according to the number of victories by that confederation at the last three World Cups. How these values are calculated is not really mentioned, but their actual values are as follows:

• 
  
  
• 1.00 - UEFA (Europe)
  
• 1.00 - CONMEBOL (South America)
  
• 0.88 - CONCACAF (Central and North America)
  
• 0.86 - CAF (Africa)
  
• 0.85 - AFC (Asia)
  
• 0.85 - OFC (Oceania)
  

The C value we are interested in is an average of the confederation coefficient of both teams involved in the match. So:

C = (C_Conf.1 + C_Conf.2) x 0.5

Examples:

• 
  
  
• European team meets European or South American team: as both confederations have a coefficient of 1.0, the strength of confederation value C is also 1.0
  
• England meets Algeria: UEFA coef. is 1.00, Algeria is from Africa, coef. 0.86. So the formula is (1.00 + 0.86) x 0.5 -> C = 0.93
  

Remember: Playing against European and South American teams give you more points

Real Match Example: Spain 0 x 1 Switzerland, World Cup 2010

Spain lost the game, so they didn't get any points

Switzerland got the following amount of points:

M = 3 (Victory)

I = 4 (World Cup match)

T = 198 (In these days Spain was 2nd in the World Ranking, so T = 200-2)

C = 1 (Both European teams, UEFA = 1.0)

Remembering:

P = M x I x T x C

P = 3 x 4 x 198 x 1

P = 2376

Jackpot!!!!

3. Calculating points for an entire year

Now that you know how to calculate the amount of points earned in one match, you are able to calculate the amount of points your nation has gathered throughout a year. The yearly points (Y) are basically an average of your match points:

The total number of points accumulated during the last 12 months (sum of Ps) divided by the number of matches played.

Example: Let's say a Team X played 8 times during the last months. Their points in each game were the following:

150, 0, 230, 1040, 870, 970, 0, 340. The sum of these points is 3600.

They had a total of 3600 points over the course of 8 matches, giving an average of 450 points per match. That's their yearly points.

Exceptions to the rule:

A team only gets the full average if it has played at least 5 matches in the yearly period. If the team has played less than 5 matches, then their averages are reduced according to this list:

• 
  
  
• 4 matches = 80% of average
  
• 3 matches = 60% of average
  
• 2 matches = 40% of average
  
• 1 match = 20% of average
  

4. Finally: Calculating the points used in the FIFA Ranking

As mentioned in the first section, FIFA considers the results of the last 4 years (a World Cup cycle) for preparing their rankings. So, you need to use the skills acquired in the previous section and calculate the yearly amount of points amassed by your team in the last four years. You should finish with 4 average values:

• 
  
  
• Y1 - Match average from past 12 months
  
• Y2 - Match average from previous year
  
• Y3 - Match average from year 3
  
• Y4 - Match average from year 4
  

The final formula is the following, where TP is the total of points for the final ranking.

TP = 100%(Y1) + 50%(Y2) + 30%(Y3) + 20%(Y4)

Final Considerations

So, if one day you're caught managing a tiny country, remember these tips:

1. 
   
   
2. Play at least 5 matches per year
   
3. Try playing against European or South American teams
   
4. Playing against the 150th placed in the world will not give you more points than playing against the 200th placed team.
   

[Chelsea8]

I never knew that..that's proberly because I was never bothered to search it. Anyway, good work Rafa!

[Eoin]

Fantastic work Rafa. A truly excellent guide and worthy of an award.

[rafa]

Thanks Rich, but I don't think that these rules apply in FMH - so I don't think an award is plausible.

But I thought this topic would interest some people around here, and I hope SI will implement these calculations on FMH12, plus the UEFA club and league rankings.

[Eoin]

If you get knocked out of the world cup, you don't gain or win points? And if you win the world cup, you don't gain points from that, just the games you win along the way?

[rafa]

Just the games count. Let's take England in South Africa, for example. England got points from the draw with US, the draw with Algeria and the victory against Slovenia. But they crashed against Germany, so zero points for that game.

[Eoin]

So you don't get any extra points for winning a tournament? Weird...

[rafa]

Well, you get extra points from the final match per se. For example, Spain got loads of points by winning against Holland.

[Eoin]

Oh, I see. What a match that was. Robben, he's in! Fail.

[samhardy]

Very nice stuff here Rafa

[Oscar]

Interesting stuff Rafa

[Dec]

My head hurts now but it is a great guide and I now understand it (though I wasn't sure I wanted to ), nice job.

[Chelsea8]

My head hurts now but it is a great guide and I now understand it (though I wasn't sure I wanted to ), nice job.

Your not the only one Dec, my head hurt too

[Dec]

The nerd side in me now wants to do a spreadsheet to calculate this .

[Oscar]

The nerd side in me now wants to do a spreadsheet to calculate this .

Haha :lol:

[rafa]

Thanks for the positive replies lads!

Dec: a spreadsheet would take you a LOT of time! I know because I've tried it once - and I gave up when I saw I had to go through all those Afghanistan versus Brunei kind of results

#noteasytobeascientist

[Dec]

I didn't mean a real life one, I was just thinking about doing how to calculate a game's points for the teams.

[rafa]

Hmm, that should be easier - plus there are less national teams involved in the game and the point that actual rankings are flawed could be easily exposed

[Dec]

If I had time I would (maybe even do a club one for a website IF it was possible) but I have about 30 things I need to do before FMH2012.

[JeffreyA]

Great work Rafa, should be an article.

[rafa]

Thanks Jaime

I just didn't promote to an article because it is not entirely FMH related.