The World Cup Group Stage Draws As Seen By Elo Rankings

December 4th, 2009 | by: chris | Comments (21)

It’s FIFA’s baby so their rankings have taken obvious priority, determining in some way nearly all parts of this draw, but anyone who knows anything – or equally nothing – will tell you that Elo puts out a far superior list of international rankings. In fact were we to compare the two in the realm that is this World Cup, Elo would be Brazil and FIFA would be North Korea. Or a pocketwatch.

When discussing who would be the disappointment of the tournament the easy unanimous answer (when unanimous equals both) was Argentina based on past accomplishments. I then nominated Japan, who might just finish last in their group and probably occupy a higher ranking in my mind than on paper. When checking out the rankings, this was discovered:

FIFA – 43
ELO – 17

That’s quite the disparity. In fact it’s the difference between being thought worthy of the World Cup 32 and not, which is no small claim.

Stopping at Japan would be imprudent, so here’s a look at the entire draw as seen by the good people at Elo. (November, not October, FIFA ranking in parenthesis.)

Group A:
South Africa 83 (86)
Mexico 8 (15)
Uruguay 15 (19)
France 9 (7)

Group B:
Argentina 7 (8)
Nigeria 28 (22)
South Korea 32 (52)
Greece 23 (12)

Group C:
England 4 (9)
USA 16 (14)
Algeria 56 (28)
Slovenia 47 (33)

Group D:
Germany 5 (6)
Australia 19 (21)
Serbia 14 (20)
Ghana 42 (37)

Group E:
Netherlands 3 (3)
Denmark 17t (26)
Japan 17t (43)
Cameroon 20 (11)

Group F:
Italy 6 (4)
Paraguay 29 (30)
New Zealand 74 (77)
Slovakia 48 (34)

Group G:
Brazil 1 (2)
North Korea 82 (84)
Cote d’Ivoire 22 (16)
Portugal 12 (5)

Group H:
Spain 2 (1)
Switzerland 21 (18)
Honduras 33 (38)
Chile 11 (17)

* – Germany would like a written explanation from FIFA as to how Portugal is better than them. They cite the ‘06 third-placed game, Euro 2008 qualifying and finals, as well as bludgeoning one of the difficult World Cup qualifying groups.

Now let’s average out the scores for fun:

Elo
A: 28.75
B: 22.5
C: 30.75
D: 20
E: 14.25
F: 39.25
G: 29.25
H: 16.75

So according to Elo, the Group of Death is Group E, which isn’t all that surprising as there’s the Netherlands and then three evenly matched teams. And in the case of Denmark and Japan, the most evenly matched game in the World Cup groups (what with the organization being unable to separate the two in the rankings).

Italy, meanwhile, were apparently given a gift for being defending champions, what with their group being by far the least impressive statistically.

FIFA
A: 31.75
B: 23.5
C: 21
D: 21
E: 20.75
F: 36.25
G: 26.75
H: 18.5

FIFA stake the claim that Spain head the Group O’Death, when they clearly don’t (Elo have them not far behind to be fair), as well as the fact that Groups C, D & E are all on par with each other. Slovenia and Algeria sheepishly cower in the corner.

Elo are far from perfect, but they’re better. Nothing learned in that realm. What we did learn is that Group E should be a cracker, being defending champions does come with some rewards, and that Group H will be better than you think.

And that outliers are the detriment to the statistician. Thanks, North Korea.