For a long time, fifa rankings have caused a lot of controversy. On the one hand, as the authoritative ranking officially recognized by FIFA, the FIFA ranking often has an important reference role before the start of previous competitions, and is also the basic support for the Work of world cup classification; but on the other hand, the "unreasonableness" of the FIFA ranking has also been criticized by many.
For example, Belgium, which has not performed well in the competition, has occupied the first place in the FIFA rankings for many years; the ranking of the national football team is even higher than that of Israel, Syria and other countries; the North Korean women's football team, which has not participated in the official competition for several years, is actually the first in Asia...
Indeed, as a ranking based entirely on the level of points, there are inevitably many irrationalities in the FIFA ranking. But from another point of view, to be able to pass through world football, the FIFA ranking must also have its own unique features.
Introduction to the rules
The ranking rules used by FIFA have changed many times in history, with the latest version being implemented after August 2018.
This method of points is called the Elo Scoring Method (Elo Grading System), which adjusts the weight of different competitions and reduces the impact of friendly matches on the rankings. FIFA believes that this method will make the ranking more intuitively reflect the strength of each team.
According to FIFA's newly introduced Elo scoring method, friendly matches have a reduced impact on the final ranking and clearly distinguish the importance of group and knockout stages.
In other words, similar to the previous situation of "brushing points" through friendly matches, it will be greatly reduced, and if you can beat the strong opponents in the knockout rounds, you will also get more points, and you will lose more points after losing to the weak team.
In addition, this set of points method also removes the weight of teams on different continents, making the calculation method of FIFA's teams more consistent.
This set of points method is combined with the 2006 World Cup in Germany to the 2018 World Cup in Russia in this period of time of the various drawbacks of the reform, although in the past few years it has still been criticized by many fans, but to a large extent also modified some unreasonable factors in the past, so that the final points of each team as reasonable as possible.
This set of integration methods has been used since August 2018, and the formula is P = Pbefore + I × (W - We).
Pbefore means Points before the match, which refers to the points held by the team before the start of the match;
I is "importance of match". Depending on the nature of the competition, the importance of the competition will also vary.
The number of friendly matches on non-international match days is 5, the number of friendly matches on international match days is 10, the number of national league group stages is 15, the number of national league play-offs and finals is 25, the number of continental football association matches is 25, the number of matches before the 1/4 final of the continental football federation matches is 35, the matches after the 1/4 final of the continental football federation matches are 40, the matches before the 1/4 final of the World Cup are 50, and the matches after the 1/4 final of the World Cup are 60. (Since the Confederations Cup has been cancelled, the scoring method for the Confederations Cup has been omitted)
W is the result of the match. If the win is 1, the draw is 0.5, and the loss is 0;
We expect results of the match. Calculated = 1 / (10^(-dr/600) + 1), where dr is the difference in ratings of the two playing teams.
Assuming that Team A has 1300 points before the game and Team B has 1000 points before the game, the two sides have a World Cup qualifier and Team A finally wins.
Then Team A expects results we=1/ [10^(-(1300-1000)/600)+1], its final points P=1300+ 25 × [1- (1/10^(-(1300-1000)/600) + 1)]; Team B's match expects results We=1/ [10^(-(1000-1300)/600)+1], and its final points P=1000 + 25 × [0- (1/10^(-(1000-1300)/ 600) + 1)]。
Compared with the rules previously used, the Elo scoring method has been significantly improved in terms of accuracy and rationality, and these improvements have been more intuitively reflected in the successive release of the finals of this World Cup.
So far, 29 places in the round of 32 of the 2022 Qatar World Cup have been determined, namely:
Asia: Qatar (host), Iran, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia
Europe: Germany, Denmark, Belgium, France, Croatia, Spain, Serbia, England, Switzerland, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland
South America: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador
North and Central America: Canada, Usa, Mexico
Africa: Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco, Cameroon
According to the latest rankings released by FIFA, the top 6 teams in Asia are Iran (world number 21), Japan (world number 23), South Korea (world number 29), Australia (world number 42), Saudi Arabia (world number 49) and Qatar (world number 51).
Among them, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have already won the World Cup ticket, and even Australia has qualified for the play-offs and still has the chance of entering the World Cup.
In Europe, the top 16 teams are Belgium (World No. 2), France (No. 3 in the World), England (No. 5 in the World), Italy (No. 6 in the World), Spain (No. 7 in the World), Portugal (No. 8 in the World), the Netherlands (No. 10 in the World), Denmark (No. 11 in the World), Germany (No. 12 in the World), Switzerland (No. 14 in the World), Croatia (No. 16 in the World), Wales (No. 18 in the World), Sweden (19th in the world), Serbia (25th in the world), Poland (26th in the world), Ukraine (27th in the world).
Of the 16 teams, 12 from Germany, Denmark, Belgium, France, Croatia, Spain, Serbia, England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Poland have already secured World Cup tickets, while Wales and Ukraine have qualified for the play-offs and still retain the opportunity to qualify for the World Cup.
Taken together, 12 of Europe's top 16 teams have confirmed their qualifications for the World Cup, two still retain hopes of qualifying, and only Italy and Sweden have completely lost the opportunity to participate in the World Cup.
In South America, the top 5 teams are Brazil (No. 1 in the world), Argentina (No. 4 in the world), Uruguay (No. 13 in the world), Colombia (No. 17 in the world), and Peru (No. 22 in the world).
Of the five teams, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay have already secured World Cup tickets, and Peru will represent South America in the play-offs against the winner between Australia and the United Arab Emirates, only Colombia will be eliminated.
In Central and North America, the top 4 teams are Mexico (no. 9 in the world), the United States (no. 15 in the world), Costa Rica (no. 31 in the world) and Canada (no. 38 in the world).
Of the four teams, Mexico, the United States and Canada all received World Cup tickets, while Costa Rica qualified for the play-offs against New Zealand from Oceania.
In Africa, the top 6 teams are Senegal (world number 20), Morocco (world number 24), Nigeria (world number 30), Egypt (world number 32), Tunisia (world number 35) and Cameroon (world number 37).
Of the six teams, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco and Cameroon have already won World Cup tickets, but Nigeria and Egypt have been eliminated, but Ghana, which currently ranks 60th in the world, has received World Cup tickets.
Even in Africa, which is relatively unbeatable, four of fifa's top six teams have qualified for the World Cup finals, with a probability of 66%. In Central and North America, three of the top 4 teams have already qualified for the World Cup finals, and considering costa Rica's weaker rivals New Zealand in the play-offs, it is likely that the top 4 teams in FIFA in Central and North America will eventually advance to the World Cup finals.
epilogue
Similar to this "high precision" is also very obvious in Asia, Europe, South America, except for a few cold doors (such as Italy, Colombia), most of the top FIFA teams in their respective continents can qualify for the World Cup.
The "God's perspective" performance of the FIFA ranking is not accidental, and has a lot to do with the increasingly rational points system.
Before the points reform, FIFA's points system still had major drawbacks, many teams performed poorly in the competition, but because they played well in friendly matches, they were often able to obtain a large number of points, resulting in the accuracy of FIFA rankings being questioned.
On the other hand, the removal of weights from teams on different continents also makes the calculation method more consistent, which makes it more difficult for teams outside of South America and Europe to obtain high points. However, from an objective point of view, such a reform also conforms to the reality that the strength of the football world is high or low, and promotes the rationality of FIFA points.
At the same time, another big advantage of the new version of FIFA points is the importance of distinguishing between group stage and knockout stage.
The previous points method generalized the group stage, the knockout round and even the final final, resulting in many of the strong dialogues in the knockout rounds not being able to obtain the points they deserved, which affected the accuracy of the selection.
Now the new version of the calculation method increases the points blessing for the knockout rounds, and gives higher points to those teams that are "weak and strong", while the teams that lose the game will face more point deductions.
The introduction of a series of factors has increased the authority of the new version of the integral calculation method, and also made the FIFA ranking based on this calculation method more reasonable. Under the famous saying that "everything is possible in the football world", the FIFA ranking is using data to tell the world that "uncertain prophets" are not empty.