FIFA World Rankings: August 2009 (Or: FIFA Rankings vs Elo Ratings, Round 2)

August 5th, 2009 | by: Daryl |

The new FIFA World Rankings are out. Well, I say new, they’re actually very very similar to the July 2009 rankings, with just Germany and Italy switching places in the top 10.

The way this usually works: We publish the rankings here on WCB, and then everyone complains in the comments about how inaccurate they are. And with good reason. Russia probably shouldn’t be two places above Argentina for example.

But this month I want to repeat an experiment we did last year and compare the current FIFA rankings with the rival World Football Elo Ratings System.

Rather than repeating information, please allow me the indulgence of quoting myself from when we first compared FIFA and Elo, back in September 2008:

The main alternative to FIFA’s calculations is the World Football Elo Rating System, adapted from Dr. Elo’s world chess rating system by footy fan Bob Runyan.

How do the two differ? Basically the FIFA system works like a big league table of the last four year’s results, but with points weighted by the type of game (eg World Cup final more valuable than a friendly), the opposition, confederation and time past since the game. Laurie furnished us with an excellent explanation here (seriously, go read that if you want to understand the FIFA system.)

The Elo system works a little – but not dramatically – differently. As with FIFA’s it’s a giant league table, but using data from (and I quote) “international football 1872 – present”. The system takes into account the type of game (World Cup, friendly, etc) but also the score as well as the result (ie how many goal did a team win by) and also the win expectancy (ie was the team expected to win, and by how many goals.)

A full explanation of the Elo football system can be found here.

On that occasion, we compared the rival system’s top 20s, and put it to a vote. The result was that 69% of people favoured Elo over FIFA. So, let’s do it again and see if anything has changed. Here’s the FIFA top 20 (published August 5th) followed by the Elo top 20 (published July 27th).

Complete rankings at FIFA.com

Full Elo Ratings here

And here’s the Poll. Which top 20 most accurately reflects reality: FIFA rankings or Elo Ratings?

International Football News – World Cup Blog RSS Feed

Rory

It’s numbers 11-20 that really are the difference, and arguments can be made both way it that caoncern. To me, FIFA has more accurately captured the state of play at the moment.
Alex

rite now fifa, but i think ussually its the elo thayts got it rite
Weston

They both seem pretty suckish to me, haha. You can never truly determine in what order all of these teams come in, and so basically you should use both to get a general idea anyway.
elle

I think elo is better, but they should really just take into account the last 5 years or so. Am I wrong or does that say they take into account games that happened in 1812? Because seriously, counting since 1812 doesn’t really make all that much since. those players are long dead. And some current countries didn’t even exist back then.
Fwembt

I’d say FIFA has it right this time.
Oli Davies

Hmmm…I normaly excpect Elo to be more accurate, but in this particular instance, I think that Fifa wins over, just about.
Barry

FIFA’s is better solely due to the fact that Australia doesn’t make the top 20 in Elo’s rankings (which makes total sense however given the difference in the systems).
http://www.worldcupblog.org Dex

But at the end of the day, does it really matter? There is no prize for finishing the year first in rankings, it’s just bragging rights. I’m sure any team would happily be dropped out of the top 20 or even top 100 in exchange for winning a World Cup.
Nick

The FIFA rankings matter for seeding in tournaments. So the higher you are the better chance you have of getting easy opposition in qualifying and the the group stages of a tournament. Otherwise you have to be very very lucky. For example look at Holland’s qualifying group. So yes they matter.
http://the12thwoman.blogspot.com/ Matilda

The link to how they determine the FIFA rankings was very interesting. Right now I would say FIFA is more correct, though obviously there are things I disagree with. The ranking system is very clever but in the end skill can be figured out by maths. It will always be slightly off, but there’s no way to get around it.
http://Mexico Daniel

I’m not sure that the Fifa ranking is best. Some examples from the last Gold Cup are difficult to understand, even with the devaluation of games. The winner of the Gold Cup, Mexico, got 22 points. It sounds like a joke because one should expect a better evaluation of a tournament. The fact that Mexico won the final by 5-0 should give more than 22 points. Another examples are Costa Rica and Honduras which dropped down 47 and 89 points in spite of reaching the semifinals. When Fifa says that playing Guadaloupe does not give points because it isn’t a Fifa member, it is a flaw because any win should give points in a Fifa tournament. Perhaps if Costa Rica and Honduras had not participated in the Gold Cup and reched the semifinals, they would not had lost points. In that case the system is unfair.
http://www.paydayagency.co.uk Sapayday

Fifa ranking really sucks, mexico winning with 22 points which i couldnt make any sense out of, they should really listen to comments and change things around.
Kieran

Fifa all the way, USA 16? no way, Australia 16, WOOOOOOOOO!!!!
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soccerroo

I would have said Elo but Mexico who up until the last two weeks has been playing bad soccer/Football for about two years is ranked 11th. If we were looking at 2006 rankings I might agree but we are not. The CONCACAF teams should not be in the top14 as best I can tell and maybe not even the top 20. I do like that FIFA has Austraila ranked, as over the last four years they have played really well.
http://worldcupblog.org Idolee

I think Elo has it just about right. It doesnt matter how teams play for Gold Cups, or Confederations Cup, or Conmebol….and so on and so forth, to some point it does, but what really matters is how they do in World Cup Qualifiers. You dont have to be the best team in the world, you just have to be the best team on the field. Even though I dont agree with the U.S. bieng number 16, maybe like number 12 or 13. Greece playing better than U.S. or Mexico…..dont think so, Cote d’Ivoire….doubt it.