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

By: Idolee

Idolee — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:16:08 +0000

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.

By: soccerroo

soccerroo — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:10:44 +0000

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.

By: sohbet

sohbet — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:52:41 +0000

tesekkurler

By: Chat

Chat — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:51:49 +0000

thank you

By: Kieran

Kieran — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:51:48 +0000

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

By: Sapayday

Sapayday — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:24:02 +0000

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.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:12:46 +0000

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.

By: Matilda

Matilda — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:37:44 +0000

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.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:47:15 +0000

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.

By: Dex

Dex — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:09:02 +0000

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.