Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 6

Many football fans will be scratching their heads to see Switzerland among the top seeds at next year's

World Cup finals, while thoroughbreds like the Netherlands and Italy are not. The truth is that it could be down to the choices made by football administrators, not players. The eyes of millions of football fans will be focused on Costa do Sauipe in the Brazilian state of Bahia next week, for the 2014 World Cup draw. A path to glory for the 32 teams that have qualified will be determined when eight pools are created - each containing four teams that will play each other in the group stages. Eight of the teams are seeds. They are the seven highest-ranked teams in Fifa's world rankings plus the host nation, which is Brazil. Being a seeded team has one big advantage - it means you don't have to play one of the other seeds in the group stages. The top seven rankings when the seedings were determined in October were Spain, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Belgium, Uruguay and Switzerland. Brazil, ranked 11th at the time, joined them.

Fifa rankings (Oct 2013)


Ranking
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Country
Spain Germany Argentina Colombia Belgium Uruguay Switzerland Netherlands Italy England

Ranking points
1513 1311 1266 1178 1175 1164 1138 1136 1136 1080

Seeing Spain, Germany, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay among the seeds shouldn't come as a surprise given their form or footballing history - between them they've won 13 of the 19 World Cups. How did the Swiss get seeded while the likes of the Netherlands, Italy and England missed out? Switzerland have had a very good run of results, dominating a weak qualifying group and beating Brazil. But to understand why the Netherlands and the Italians finished just below the Swiss, you need to understand the mysteries of Fifa's ranking system.

It's based on how a team has performed in the last four years, with most of the emphasis on the most recent year. If a country wins or draws a game, it earns points but if a team loses a game, it gets nothing. Fifa is trying to compare all the national teams and some play many more games than others so to make it fair, the rankings are based on the average number of points earned in each game.
Continue reading the main story

More or Less: Behind the stats


Listen to More or Less on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, or download the free podcast Download the More or Less podcast More stories from More or Less

These points are based on who the game is against, whether it is a friendly or a qualifying game and which continent the opposing teams come from, because Fifa gives more points to matches against European and South American teams. The number of points that can be earned for winning a match can vary hugely. For example, the Dutch victory over Brazil in the quarter-finals of the last World Cup earned the maximum number of points possible from one match. That is because the Netherlands beat the number one team in the world at the finals of the World Cup. In Fifa ranking points that's three points for a win multiplied by 200 points for beating the world's best team multiplied by four because it was at the finals, giving a total of 2,400 points.
Continue reading the main story

Ranking points earned = M x I x T x C

M: Result of the match - win (3), draw (1) defeat (0) I: Importance of the match - friendly (1), World Cup qualifier or confederation-level qualifier (2.5), Confederation level or Confederations Cup match (3) and FIFA World Cup match (4) T: Strength of opposition - No 1 ranked team (200) down on sliding scale to 150th ranked team (50) and all teams below also 50 C: Strength of confederation of opposition - Europe/South America (1), North and Central America, Caribbean (0.88), Asia/Africa (0.86) and Oceania (0.85)

A more typical example would be a game against an average European team like Finland or the Republic of Ireland. If the Netherlands beat such a team in a World Cup qualifier they get around 1,000 points. If they do it in a friendly, they get 400 points. But it is possible to get a much smaller number of points for a win. If the Netherlands were to play one of the teams outside the Fifa top 150 in a friendly match, like Indonesia, they would get only a tiny amount of points just 139.5 for a win. Of course it makes no sense for the Netherlands to play a game against a team like Indonesia, as whatever happens it will bring down their average

number of Fifa points per game. You would have to be completely mad to do something like that in World Cup year, when the points have the most value. Unfortunately for the orange hordes of Dutch fans, that is exactly what their team did in June 2013. If they hadn't played that game they would be one of the top seeds, not Switzerland, who played fewer friendlies than most teams in the final 12 months that counted towards World Cup qualifying ranking points.

But the Netherlands are not the only team to make this mistake - on 31 May, Italy played a friendly against San Marino, a team that has only won one game in its history. It earned Italy a paltry 150 Fifa points and of course it brought down their average number of points per game, possibly costing them a top seeding. If you reassess Fifa's October rankings without using the points gained from friendly matches, then Netherlands leap from eighth to fifth and Italy from ninth to seventh, while Switzerland would fall from seventh to ninth and Uruguay from sixth to 10th.
Continue reading the main story

A world without friendly matches


Oct 2013 rankings
1 Spain

Points

Without friendlies

Points Change
2,127

1,513 Spain

A world without friendly matches


Oct 2013 rankings Points Without friendlies Points Change

Germany

1,311 Brazil

2,012

Argentina

1,266 Germany

1,902

Colombia

1,178 Argentina

1,727

Belgium

1,175 Netherlands

1,652

Uruguay

1,164 Italy

1,641

Switzerland

1,138 Belgium

1,590

Netherlands

1,136 Chile

1,577

Italy

1,136 Switzerland

1,471

10 England

1,080 Uruguay

1,433

A world without friendly matches


Oct 2013 rankings Points Without friendlies Points Change

Continue reading the main story

The San Marino and Indonesia games illustrate the way Fifa rankings systems evaluate friendly matches. If you want to be o

Вам также может понравиться