September 2014 and FIFA’s World Ranking release sees Australia drop to 84 in the world and become the AFC’s ninth best nation. What are these rankings and can they improve after Australia’s two matches in October?
The FIFA World Rankings are not just there for bragging rights, having been used in the past to seed teams for tournaments and World Cup draws.
» Where does your country stand? View the latest FIFA rankings
Created in 1992 it has come under criticism over the years and has undergone a number of revisions, the latest of which was post 2006 World Cup.
The current system averages the points for each match over the past four years and takes into account the type of match played (friendlies vs qualifiers vs tournaments), the ranking of an opponent, the strength of the confederation as well as the result. The four-year weighted assessment period is applied to older points to reduce their significance and reflect the current form of a national team.
Similar to a league system, a win has a value of three; a draw one, a loss zero, while a penalty shootout winner gets two points, the loser one.
The number of goals scored (or let in) no longer count. Losing by loads of goals means zero points.
It is actually an easy formula to calculate for a match but when historical victories lose their shine coupled with facing weaker opponents, missing qualifiers and important tournaments, it is easy to see how even great teams fall down in rankings (see Brazil prior to 2013 Confederations Cup win). It is also why winning friendly matches can sometimes see a team drop in rankings.
October sees Australia take on the United Arab Emirates (UAE, ranked 73 and 6th in AFC) and Qatar (96 and 11th in AFC). You can use FIFA’s Ranking Prognosis tool to see what a win against UAE (323.85 points) and Qatar (265.20 points) will do to our ranking points (Australia moves from 390 to 403 points). A draw or a loss (with a win in the other match) sees our points drop on average by 9 points. Lose both and we drop 41 points.
Saudi Arabia immediately above us (402 points) play Uruguay (535.575 for a win) and Lebanon (201.45). Such a good result for the Saudi’s gives them a ranking points score of…402 (and no change).
Distilling down the above in terms of FIFA rankings means the following: Winning is important, winning against stronger opposition helps, winning in major tournaments is like hitting the jackpot.
Of course Australia isn’t focussing on improving rankings but on improving the way we play. We are on a journey the start of which is a period of transition for the national team with a long view to making the 2018 World Cup.
Ange Postecoglou’s immediate concern over the next four months is preparing for a home Asian Cup in January 2015. To top our group of Oman, Kuwait and South Korea means defeating UAE, Qatar and Japan (in November). Beating the likes of Iran, Uzbekistan, Japan currently above us and winning the Asian Cup will open up the 2017 Confederations Cup, and valuable experience against high quality opposition.
Postecoglou has already fostered a belief in the players’ abilities. He is now working to identify players in the short term to be on call for the Asian Cup and World Cup Qualifiers later in 2015.
By 2017 Postecoglou will have had to turn the team around, winning World Cup Qualifying matches, and be in the box seat to qualify for Russia 2018. The belated transition of 2013-2015 will be a memory. New players will come into a squad firm in belief with veterans ready to share a winning mentality. A style of play firmly entrenched.
The next four years are an important period for the national team and Postecoglou. Winning, and winning with style, will become paramount to labelling that period a success.
The FIFA World Rankings for Australia will only reflect how many games we win, not the hard journey we will have travelled to achieve success.
Griffo
Guest
October FIFA rankings have been released and Australia has dropped 10 places to 94th in the world and 11th best in Asia (359 points). Saudi Arabia dropped 15 places and are in 12th position in AFC and ranked 97th. Interestingly if Australia had won both October friendlies for 403 points, we would be ranked 80th and 7th in Asia behind UAE.
Griffo
Guest
For those still subscribing: With the conclusion of the October matches for Australia I suspect in the October adjustments Australia will head down the rankings to the high 80′s at best (possibly into the 90′s) on 359 points. What could happen is that Iraq (393), Qatar (369) and even China (369) will leapfrog us in the Asian pecking order seeing us as Asia's 12th best. Winning the Asian Cup and most if not all our games in that tournament will help (increase rankings), but if Australia bomb out early the NT could possibly be facing extra qualifying in future if Australia don’t start winning more than losing. This can be seen in 2011 where the run to the final in the Asian Cup gave Australia an average of 422.74 for that year (and now weighted at 20% 3.5 years later to give 84.55 points to the September total of 390 points). Here is Australia’s 4-year average in FIFA World Rankings including September 2014 (390 points):
apaway
Roar Guru
What I meant Griffo, was, how was it possible for the Socceroos to be ranked any lower than 32 at the end of the World Cup. They made it, yet countries like Czech Republic who didn't, did not go down in ranking, yet Australia did?? This makes no sense. I get that qualification paths might not be seen as equal or the same but in World Cup qulaifiers, you can only beat what's in front of you, countries don't choose to play each other, they are drawn against each other. So yes, I would have the top 32 as the 32 sides who compete in the World Cup. Once teams start playing in regional tournament qualifiers, the rankings can start to change.
KJ
Roar Rookie
My biggest problem with the current ranking system is if you lose to teams your ranking suggests that you should, you can still go backwards. The World Cup for Australia was a perfect example of this.
Da Lawyah
Guest
That just shows how ridiculous the system is. We could be beat all of those teams (and do beat some of them quite regularly, particularly Oman). I agree with above. If you are a finalist in the world cup your ranking should reflect that. similarly, if you win a regional tournament you should be the highest ranked ream in your region.
Griffo
Roar Guru
It's interesting that the FIFA Women's Ranking is based off an ELO system. Although introduced in 2003, it includes all results since 1971. Wonder what would be needed for FIFA to adopt the World Football ELO Ratings and what reception the ELO system would get if it became official?
Adrian none
Roar Rookie
here are some of teams above Australia in FiFA Antigua and Barbuda Uganda Saudi Arabia Gabon Estonia Benin (never heard of this country before) Oman Sierra Leone Northern Ireland Jordan Israel Uzbekistan there to many :)
Adrian none
Roar Rookie
don't even look at FiFA ranking, when you have ELO...FIFA ranking is better then no ranking at all, but FIFA is bias to UEFA and South America beating Estonia in Euro qual will get a team more points then beating Australia in Asain qual....this is just crazy wrong ELO has Australia at 44th in world, this is to high, and Australian will go back around 25 to 30 in world after a home Asian champs
Griffo
Roar Guru
apaway - Do you mean resetting the rankings for the next four year period after 32 World Cup spots are taken? Interesting concept and I wonder how that would look taking into account continental cups, World Cup Qualifiers and the Confederations Cup preceding the next World Cup cycle. One flaw might be that, even though you beat most opposition, you miss out on the World Cup. If the rankings have little influence and advantages, why have them at all? With the current system am hoping over the next one or two World Cup cycles the AFC can improve it's collective performance and gain a higher confederation rating. It would reflect our footballing strength and give weight to not only our rankings, but hopefully extra spots in the World Cup if the become available...
apaway
Roar Guru
Call me crazy, but the FIFA Top 32 immediately following the World Cup should have been the 32 nations who, you know, MADE THE WORLD CUP.
Griffo
Roar Guru
I think not going through Asian Cup qualifiers, at a 2.5x match status multiplayer, hasn't done us favours in terms of ranking. More importantly, we didn't have extra games for Holger to try other players or perhaps for FFA to find out how (un)suitable Holger was to the team...
Kasey
Guest
I wouldn't say no result...Including 2006, we've qualified for 3 from 3 World Cup Finals. and with a Match status multiplyer of 1.0 for friendlies but 4.0 for World Cups. we're obviously playing okay at the right times of the cycle. I used to scoff at the USA's high20s ranking, there is just no way their rank reflected their true ranking The USA has Gold Cup games to pad its ranking. Would having a higher ranking achieve much for us except a feel-good factor?
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
I tend to agree, whiskeymac. It is more a matter of respect as opposed to a performance measure.
sydutd77
Guest
Im sure you will get more points against a belgium or romania, rather than an american samoa, nice try though trying to downplay the fifa rankings our performances over the last 4 years justify our ranking, and its time for us to get back to where we were in 2006, weve hired around 100 foreign technical coaches and technial directors and spent millions for no result
Griffo
Roar Guru
That's basically how it goes. UEFA and CONMENOL have higher confederation coefficients (1.0 and 0.99) while AFC is 0.85 - basically you get higher points because the average of the two coefficients gets you more points along with beating those teams in a world cup. Match status multiplyer is 1.0 for friendlies but 4.0 for World Cups. Why the Pim era got us such a high ranking because we rarely lost leading up to South Africa's Germany match. Yes, a good defence helps ;-)
Kasey
Guest
The FIFA rankings are next to useless and don’t take into account boldness of scheduling. Sure we could schedule a game against American Samoa every month re-live the 'Glory Days of Oceania' and gain ‘easy’ ranking points, but how would that make us a better footballing nation? We’re far better off challenging ourselves by playing the odd friendly against a higher ranked nation in between meaningful tournaments/WCQs which are much more frequent now that we’re in Asia. All FIFA rankings seem to do for us is give football illiterate sports bulletin/newspaper editors an easy headline so they can think they’ve put a ‘Soccer story’ in their bulletin/newspaper when in reality…’Socceroos up’ or ‘Socceroos Down’ is a pretty pointless measure. Football fans are fully aware of the subtleties of the system and probably care more about ELO rankings or tournament performance than what FIFA rankings say. In the time before the A-League when the health of the game in Australia was tied solely to the strength of the Socceroos we might have cared more about FIFA rankings, but now we know that we’re in Asia and with the AFC Asian Cup coming up, we’ll get plenty of meaningful games in a tournament that will boost our rankings points and give us a more accurate representation of where we are in the global hierarchy.
sydutd77
Guest
well if you want to be up there in the ranking you have to beat the best teams, doesnt help conceding 2 or 3 goals every game either.
Griffo
Roar Guru
Cheers whiskeymac. I believe FFA have indicated they would like to see us as a top 10 nation. Like or loath the rankings hovering around the top 10 consistently would mean we are competitive and have respect - it would be a good place to be.
whiskeymac
Guest
Good read. Although I dont want to I can't help but give consideration to those rankings. When we were in top 30 it looked good, and there was associated kudos and pride despite the systems flaws.