FIFA World Rankings or World Football Elo Ratings - Which is Better?
The September FIFA World Rankings were announced yesterday, without too many changes from August. Euro 2008 champs Spain are still numero uno and Italy have traded places with Germany to take second. I’m assuming the Olympics has no impact on FIFA’s rankings because gold medalists Argentina and silver medlaists Nigeria’s ranking remains unchanged - in 7th and 27th respectively.
I know a lot of people are unhappy with FIFA’s ranking system. Personally I think it’s improved greatly since the changes they made post-World Cup 2006 (when the rankings had the USA as the 5th best team on the planet.) But it’s still not perfect, and never ever will be.
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.
In the end (to numerical simpletons like myself) it’s all just numbers and formulas. Who can say whether FIFA’s P = M x I x T x C x 100 is any better than Elo’s Rn = Ro + KG(W − We) ? The proof is really in the pudding. And in this case that pudding is the September 2008 Top 20 from each system. Basically, to the casual observer, which looks more accurate:
| Rank | FIFA | Rank | Elo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spain | 1 | Spain | |
| 2 | Italy | 2 | Netherlands | |
| 3 | Germany | 3 | Argentina | |
| 4 | Netherlands | 4 | Brazil | |
| 5 | Croatia | 5 | Italy | |
| 6 | Brazil | 6 | Germany | |
| 7 | Argentina | 7 | France | |
| 8 | Czech Rep. | 8 | Croatia | |
| 9 | Portugal | 9 | England | |
| 10 | Turkey | 10 | Mexico | |
| 11 | France | 11 | Romania | |
| 12 | Russia | 12 | Russia | |
| 13 | Romania | 13 | Czech Rep. | |
| 14 | Cameroon | 14 | Portugal | |
| 15 | England | 15 | Turkey | |
| 16 | Scotland | 16 | Uruguay | |
| 16 | Bulgaria | 17 | USA | |
| 18 | Greece | 18 | Denmark | |
| 19 | Israel | 18 | Paraguay | |
| 20 | Ghana | 20 | Colombia/Bulgaria | |
So, which do you think looks more accurate?
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Comments
By Alex | September 4th, 2008 at 5:16 pm 
I am a firm believer in the elos. The fifa rankings don’t work, especially after major tournaments. The elo is a much better representation of a team’s strength.
Posted from 
United States
By Rob | September 4th, 2008 at 6:06 pm Its tempting to say the second one because England are ninth. But by the same token, we’re not really the ninth best team on the planet, are we?
By boom shake shake shake the room | September 4th, 2008 at 6:13 pm i reckon the elo rankings are the way to go. even if a team is artificially high u can work out the reason- for example holland convincingly beating france and italy. but then again why are england quite so high? and where the hell are my beloved scots!? on reconsideration i doff my cap to u blatter! 
Posted from 
United Kingdom
By romaromaroma | September 4th, 2008 at 6:25 pm Both are garbage.
I support Italy. We won the World Cup and somehow were in 2nd besides the fact that we won the “World Cup.”
Now we move up to 3rd and we tied Austria and Romania, lost to Spain and Netherlands and only beat France(who had a horrible Euro as well). It just doesn’t make sense to me.
By romaromaroma | September 4th, 2008 at 6:26 pm i mean 2nd
By mele419 | September 4th, 2008 at 6:29 pm Fifa thank you.
And the olympics have no impact because it wasnt a FIFA sanctioned event.
Posted from United States
By Thomas | September 4th, 2008 at 8:41 pm The US is the 17th best team in the world? Hard to swallow that unlikeliness.
Posted from United States
By Daryl | September 4th, 2008 at 8:41 pm romaromaroma,
I see where you’re coming from, but I’m not so sure that winning the World Cup should guarantee the #1 spot for the next four years. Otherwise there’d be no point having any sort of ranking system. Basically, winning the World Cup in 2006 makes Italy World Cup holders and world champions, but doesn’t necessarily make Italy the best team in the world in 2008.
By romaromaroma | September 4th, 2008 at 10:23 pm Daryl
I think you may have misunderstood me. I agree it shouldn’t guarantee top spot, especially not for 4 years. I might not be opposed to a month however.
All I was getting at is that the Fifa ranking system is crazy.
Italy went into WC06 in 13th and won it moving up to 2nd. Fine, that is 11 spots based on a bunch of wins. Yet at Euro08 the opposite happened, Italy stunk it up and still moved up in the standings. (went in 3rd, moved to 2nd)
In January 2007 Italy finally pulled into first, however that was after their post WC06 run of 6 games where the lost to both France and I think Croatia.
It seems odd that Italy would go up when it is clear they weren’t in form.
Or that their success at the world cup had such an impact, while Euros didn’t seem to have any effect at all.
It just doesn’t make sense.
By Daryl | September 5th, 2008 at 1:00 pm romaromaroma,
Yeah, sorry, didn’t read the second part of your original post properly.
Agree that often the moves up and down the rankings don’t make sense. I have a theory why that is too, and think it’s because the FIFA rankings are based on results from a window of the last four years.
That means that the window moves every month and points gained from results just over four years ago are being wiped from the record with every new ranking. So the rankings for say September 2008 reflect not just points gained in August 2008, but also reflect the disappearance of a months worth of points gained (or lost) in 2004.
For that reason, I’d say the Elo ratings system is better, because it’s cumulative. All the month to month changes in the Elo table are the direct result of games played in the previous month, which make a lot more sense than factoring in games that did and then didn’t count from four years ago.
Posted from United States
By Charudatt | September 6th, 2008 at 5:26 am I think ,this ‘Elo’ Sstem of ranking is crazy( Looks like supporting England. How come will they be at 9th.They ‘FAILED’ to qualify for Euros.
In the process of same , they lost big matches (Both against Croatia and one vs Russia) and drew Macedonia at home and Israel away and meantime lost some friendlies also.(I remember against Spain and Germany).They just edged out They still were winless vs Czech Rep. at wembley after Euros. and still they are above Portugal, Russia ,Turkey( both semifinalist of euro), How is it possible? England Dont deserve to be at 9th or even 15th in Fifa rankings…
Posted from 
India
By James | September 6th, 2008 at 1:52 pm Im gonna have to go with fifa because as Charudatt said, England arent better than the others like Russia or Turkey.
Posted from United Kingdom
By hassan | September 13th, 2008 at 3:58 pm mon the scots
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