Predictions on World Cup 2006 "seeded" teams

**Dutchfan** · 08-07-2005 05:48 AM

Reading some of what soccerates had to say in my thread, "Lack of World Cup success," I came up with the idea of asking people whom they think will be the "seeded" teams in next summer's World Cup? Obviously it is at least partially contingent upon which teams make the final 32, but I think we all have a pretty good idea of at least a few of the teams that will be seeded. Germany, obviously. Argentina, I'm sure. Brasil, assuming they make it (uh, I think we all pretty much know that THAT is a foregone conclusion, even if it's not official yet, right?

). So that's three that I'd be willing to bet a LOT of money on being seeded teams next year. Who else? Well, I think soccerates was correct in stating that FIFA looks at a team's performance in the last three World Cups as a way of determining whether or not it should be seeded or not, and in the last three World Cups, these teams (aside from the three already mentioned), if I'm not mistaken, have finished in the top eight: Italy (twice), The Netherlands (twice), Spain (twice), Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, England, France, Romania, Senegal, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, and The United States. Based on that alone I would probably pick (assuming they make it, of course) as the other five seeded teams: Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, England, and France. HOWEVER... I'm not sure that performance in the last three World Cups is ALL that FIFA looks at to determine which teams will be the "seeded" ones. I'm wondering if FIFA also looks at their own rankings of national teams as a criterion. Now, I know that many of you out there consider the FIFA national team rankings to be little more than a joke, and I don't necessarily disagree with you, though I do think they have at least a LITTLE value. But if FIFA itself chooses to use its rankings as a way to determine which teams should be seeded in its tournaments, then I think those rankings are worth taking a look at. Right now, these are the top 20 teams in FIFA's own rankings of national men's teams, starting at #1 and going in order: Brasil, Argentina, The Netherlands, The Czech Republic, México, The United States, France, England, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Turkey, Japan, Italy, Iran, Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Uruguay, Denmark, Greece (boy, looking at that list I can DEFINITELY understand why some people think the FIFA rankings are a joke! The United States above England, Spain, Germany, and Italy? Italy only at #14? Iran in the top 20 at all? Uruguay ahead of Colombia from CONMEBOL? Sheesh! Give me a break!). Based on that information, I'd say that a "seeding" for The Netherlands, France, England, and Spain (along with the three I mentioned early on) is almost a guarantee, if they make it to the tournament at all. The one I'm not sure about is Italy. In my opinion, Italy should almost ALWAYS be a seeded team at no matter what tournament it's in, despite the fact that actually WINNING tournaments for them, in recent years, has been difficult. But the problem is that The Czech Republic is way up there at #4 in the FIFA World Rankings, a full 10 spots above where Italy is in those rankings right now (justified or not!), and I'm not sure how that'll play out, IF The Czech Republic actually makes the World Cup this time, something that they have (somewhat surprisingly, in my opinion) failed to do since all the way back in 1990! On the other hand, what about México?!? Is there room for a "seeded" team that doesn't come from either Europe or South America (which, if it were to happen, I believe would be the first time ever)? Looking at it more closely, México is just one spot behind The Czech Republic in FIFA's rankings, and, unlike The Czech Republic, México has actually BEEN to the last three World Cups! Could México actually be seeded in the tournament if Italy is there, even though Italy has had a higher placing than México at least two of the three times? Good questions, in my opinion. 'Course, it may be rendered somewhat moot if France doesn't make the World Cup next year, and from what I was reading in another forum and seeing for myself in the UEFA World Cup qualifying standings, that's hardly a given. I just checked the remaining matches for France in qualifying and they SHOULD be able to get at least 6 points from their remaining four matches 'cause they play The Faroe Islands and Cyprus (surely two of the most dismal teams in all of Europe, if not the world) along with The Republic of Ireland and Switzerland, though both of those last two are on the road. And they are a mere three points behind current group leaders Ireland with a game in hand. So we'll see. For right now I'm going to say these will be the seeded teams in next year's World Cup IF France makes the tournament (I feel pretty safe about all the other teams in my list making it there, in both cases): Germany, Brasil, Argentina, France, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and England; and these will be the seeded teams if France DOES NOT make it next year: Germany, Brasil, Argentina, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, England, and...México, marking the first time (that I know of) that there will be a seeded team at the World Cup that DOESN'T come from either Europe or South America! The team that will be "the odd team out" having just missed out on being seeded? The Czech Republic, despite its high ranking in the FIFA World Rankings (by virtue of it not having made any of the last three World Cups). So, what do YOU think?

**bboy treble** · 08-07-2005 05:51 AM

id read all of that but im too lazy

**soccerates** · 08-07-2005 06:26 AM

http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statisti...2540,3,00.html

(comments in bold; mine)
FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking

OVERVIEW OF BASIC PRINCIPLES AND METHOD OF CALCULATION

1. BACKGROUND AND HISTORY

In August 1993 FIFA, working in co-operation with the Coca-Cola Company, introduced a ranking system for senior national teams. The system makes it possible to publish comparisons of the relative strengths of internationally active teams at regular intervals.

Since its introduction, the FIFA/Coca-Cola Ranking has proved to be a reliable measure for comparing national A-teams. (hahahahahaha) Over the years, some of the details of the ranking process have proved to be in need of improvement, (no shit) and appropriate revised versions were put into effect at the beginning of 1999. (still crap)

The following is an overview of the revised basis on which the ranking is calculated. By providing explanations of the various criteria involved and some concrete examples, it is hoped that it will be easier in future to understand and interpret the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking List.

2. OVERVIEW

The FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking includes the national A-teams of all FIFA member associations who play international matches. Not included in the calculation are matches played by junior teams or other representative national sides (such as the women's national team).

Taken into consideration for the ranking are all international-A match results over a time span of the last eight years:

World Cup finals matches
World Cup preliminary matches
FIFA Confederations Cup matches (crap since not all teams participate)
Continental championship final matches
Continental championship preliminary matches
Friendly matches
The ranking list is produced by a computer program which assigns a team points for every match, according to clearly defined criteria. The factors taken into consideration are:

Winning, drawing and losing
Number of goals
Home or away match
Importance of the match (multiplication factor)
Regional strength (multiplication factor)
For each team only the seven best results per year are given full weighting. Results from the past are given progressively less weighting year by year until after eight years they are dropped completely. In this way current success is rated more highly than past results. (which, btw is why when teams like Holland or Czech fail to make the WC (2002) their rankings are usually not affected and they stay at high levels...no good...no bad...no ugly results = a positive ranking...which is dumb)

At the end of each year, two awards are given. The "Team of the Year" goes to the team that notches up the seven matches of the year reaping the overall highest average number of points during the year. "Best Mover of the year" is the one that has made the most progress in the course of the previous twelve months (see Section 6). (whopdeedoo)

3. BASIC CALCULATION PRINCIPLES AND SOME EXAMPLES

The basic idea behind the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings is the same as that for a normal championship: a team can win a certain number of points for each match, depending on the results, and the points are totalled. The association with the highest total is at the top of the ranking list.

But by contrast to normal league championships, for the World Ranking a team's points for a match do not depend solely on whether they win, lose or draw. Also affecting the total for a match will be the number of goals scored and conceded, the venue and the importance of the match. In addition, the strength of the opponent is considered, (nice how they don't explain what is actually considered point wise huh?) so that a win over a weakly rated opponent will earn fewer points than one against a strongly rated one. (one of the reasons why good teams actually lose points when the tie "lesser quality" opposition...whatever that means) This means that a win will not simply bring two or three points and a draw one, as would happen in a national league. The calculation is more complicated since it incorporates the factors mentioned above. (as said, it's not explained fully...cuz it's flawed...www.eloratings.net is more accurate as it calculated per game).

To make the ranking list more understandable, the 1999 revision has been "scaled up". Previously, a win could earn between one and three points; now the scale has been multiplied by ten, so a win can bring between ten and thirty points, according to the opponent. (So what you really mean FIFA, is according to what value YOU give to that opponent as you perceive it? )The overall totals of teams in the list will from now on range from 0 up to about 800 points.

The following sections give details of the individual weighting criteria, and the results of applying these principles can be seen in some examples in Section 4.

3.1. Winning, drawing or losing

Naturally a win will bring more points than a defeat in any system, but simply giving two or three points for a win, one for a draw and none for a defeat, would not fully meet all the requirements for a reliable world-wide ranking system.

Therefore the distribution of points also takes into consideration the relative strengths of the two teams. In practice this means that a win over a weaker opponent will earn fewer points than victory over an equally rated or stronger one. It is also possible for a weak team that puts up a good show against a stronger one to earn points in defeat - though as a general rule not as many as the stronger team that beat them. (see example in Section 4).

A special exception is made for matches that are decided on penalties; the winning team earns the full number of points for a win, while the losing team gets the number of points that would have been awarded for a draw.

3.2 Number of goals

A further factor taken into consideration is the number of goals scored and conceded in a match. Here too the distribution of these points depends on the relative strengths of the two teams. In other words, a goal scored by the lower-rated team will be weighted more than one scored by the higher-rated side. On the other side of the balance sheet, points are deducted for goals conceded. To encourage attacking football with more goals, goals conceded are weighted less than goals scored. In matches decided on penalties, only goals scored during regular playing time or extra time are considered in the calculation.

A possible "overweighting" of goals is avoided by attaching more importance to the first goal that a team scores than to any subsequent ones. On the whole, the number of goals scored can never earn as many points as would be awarded for a win. This is in accordance with the general principle that while more goals may make the result look more impressive, in the final reckoning - as in normal league championships - it is winning or losing that is decisive.

3.3 Home and away games

To make an allowance for the extra handicap of playing away from home, the away-team is awarded a small bonus of 3 points. For games played on neutral territory or during World Cup final rounds there are no such bonus points.

3.4 Status of a match

The importance of a game is also considered - a World Cup encounter is weighted more heavily than a friendly match. The method applied here is to use a pre-calculated factor by which the points totals of a given match are multiplied.

The factors used are:

Friendly match x 1.00
Continental championship preliminary x 1.50
World Cup preliminary match x 1.50
Continental championship finals match x 1.75
FIFA Confederations Cup match x 1.75 (crap)
World Cup finals match x 2.00
This means that qualifying matches are weighted 50% higher than friendlies, continental final round matches 75 % higher and matches during World Cup finals twice as much.

3.5 Regional strength factors

It is accepted that there are differences in strength between the various continents. To take these into account in an objective manner, weighting factors are worked out each year for each of the confederations. The basis of evaluation for each continent is the performance of its teams in direct intercontinental encounters. At the end of every year a continental ranking list is calculated, based on the same criteria as used for the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.

Taken into consideration are not all the intercontinental matches played by teams from a given continent, but only the direct confrontations between the strongest teams from each continent. Specifically this means that what is included are matches between the best 25 per cent of the teams from a given continent (with a minimum of 5 teams being considered). This way the danger is averted of errors possibly being introduced by considering matches between strong teams of a weak confederation against weak teams of a strong one.

The weightings are applied in the form of multiplication factors for teams from the same continent (see below). If teams from two different confederations are involved then the factor applied is the average of the two continental weightings.

For 2005, the following weighting factors will apply:

UEFA x 1.00
CONMEBOL x 0.99
CAF x 0.96
CONCACAF x 0.94
AFC x 0.93
OFC x 0.93

3.6 Summary

Based on the above considerations, the total number of points credited to a team after a match will depend on the following criteria:

Points for winning, drawing or losing
Plus the points for goals scored in this game
Minus points for the goals conceded
Plus a bonus for the away team
Multiplied by the appropriate factor for the status of the match
Multiplied by the appropriate factor for regional strength
The number of points for a win, draw or loss, as well as for the number of goals scored or conceded is dependent on the strength of the opponent. In order not to punish a lack of success too severely, a negative points total is rounded up to 0.00.

4. EXAMPLES OF ACTUAL CALCULATIONS

Some actual examples should help to make the methods of calculation clear. In this instance it is assumed that three teams of different strengths are involved in a small friendly tournament on neutral territory. For the sake of clarity no away team bonus, nor continental or status multiplication factors are applied.

Before the tournament the three team have the following points totals:

Team A: 630 points
Team B: 500 points
Team C: 480 points
Thus, team A is by some distance the highest ranked of the three:

The following table shows the points allocations based on three possible outcomes of the match between the strongest team A, and the somewhat weaker team B:

Example 1: Team A - Team B (Team A stronger than Team B)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Team A Team B Team A Team B Team A Team B
3 : 1 1 : 3 2 : 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Win/defeate +17.4 +2.6 -2.6 +22.6 +7.4 +12.6
Goals for Team A +5.4 -3.6 +2.3 -1.6 +4.1 -2.7
Goals for Team B -1.8 +2.7 -4.1 +6.2 -3.1 +4.7
Total +21.0 +1.7 (0.00) +27.2 +8.4 +14.6

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the table it can be seen that in the case of a 3:1 win, team A is allocated a total of 21.0 points. But as the more highly ranked team, the win itself only earns 17.4 of these. The lower-rated team B still earns 1.7 points. Had the "weaker" team B won the match 3:1, they would have received 27.4 points, while the then negative total for team A would have been rounded up to 0.00. For a 2:2 draw, team B would have earned a few points more than A, for being the lower-rated team.

When the difference in strength between the two teams is less, so also will be the difference in points allocation. The following table illustrates how the points would be divided following the same results as above, but with two roughly equally ranked teams, B and C, being involved:

Example 2: Team B - Team C (both teams approximately the same strength)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Team B Team C Team B Team C Team B Team C
3 : 1 1 : 3 2 : 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Win/defeate +19.6 +0.4 -0.4 +20.4 +9.6 +10.4
Goals for Team B +5.7 -3.8 +2.5 -1.7 +4.3 -2.9
Goals for Team C -1.7 +2.5 -3.9 +5.8 -3.0 +4.4
Total +23.6 (0.00) (0.00) +24.5 +10.9 +11.9

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this case, it can be seen that for either team, approximately the same number of points would be awarded for a win or a draw, with team C getting slightly more since they are ranked a little lower.

There would normally be a bonus for the away team, which would be added to the above. Then the total would be multiplied by weighting factors that take into account the importance of the match and the regional strengths. Thus, for example, if the games above had been played during a World Cup final round, then the points total would first be doubled, and then multiplied by the continental weighting factor for the two teams involved.

5. FURTHER CRITERIA

To obtain a greater degree of objectivity in the ranking list, two further criteria have to be considered:

The number of matches a team plays within a given period of time
The importance to be attached to results from previous years.
5.1 The number of matches played

So that teams playing more international matches are not favoured over those playing fewer, only a limited number of games are taken into consideration. This number has been determined by deciding on what could be termed the "averagely active teams", and these were agreed on as those having played between seven and ten matches per year.

So that less active teams are not disadvantaged in the ranking, the calculation initially considers only the seven best results. Further results are included, by working out an average for them.

The situation is best clarified by means of an example. Suppose a team plays twelve matches; then the calculation would run like this:

The best seven of the 12 results are identified
The total score for these seven matches is calculated (X)
The total score for all 12 matches is calculated
This total is divided by 12 and multiplied by seven (Y)
The total for the seven best results is added to the seven "average" results (X+Y)
This total (X+Y) is divided by two for the final score

5.2 Previous results

So that the ranking accurately reflects current form, the greatest importance is attached to matches played in the last twelve months. But attention is also paid to results from previous years. Basically, the current year's points total is averaged in with points earned in the seven preceding years, with weightings that decline progressively the further back we go. After eight years, results are dropped from the calculation altogether.

Thus the points included in the calculations for the ranking at the end of 2003 would comprise the following:

Last 12 months (e.g. 2003) : 8/8 value

+ previous year (2002) : 7/8 value
+ previous year (2001) : 6/8 value
+ previous year (2000) : 5/8 value
+ previous year (1999) : 4/8 value
+ previous year (1998) : 3/8 value
+ previous year (1997) : 2/8 value
+ previous year (1996) : 1/8 value
6. AWARDS

The "Team of the Year" goes to the team that notches up the seven matches of the year reaping the overall highest average number of points during the year.

The award for the "Best Mover of the Year" in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking is not based simply on the biggest jump in the number of points or in the number of places up the ranking ladder. What also has to be taken into consideration is the fact that it becomes progressively harder for a team to earn points the more it already has.

Thus to decide on the " Best Mover of the Year " a calculation is performed that multiplies the number of points a team has at the end of the year [x] by the number it has earned during the year [y]. The team with the highest index obtained in this way wins the award.

The table below shows the calculation for the year 2002.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Team Points at end of
2002(x) Points won in
2002 (y) Total
(x * y)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Senegal 646 107 69122
2. Wales 554 113 62602
3. Brazil 856 63 53928
4. Cameroon 685 76 52060
5. Mali 490 99 48510

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7. THE COMPUTER PROGRAM

The program for calculating and up-dating the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking was developed for FIFA by two specialists, Dr. Markus Lamprecht and Dr. Hanspeter Stamm. The development of the program (including the 1999 revisions) was carried out in close co-operation with football experts, and the Communications and Competitions Divisions of FIFA.

**soccerates** · 08-07-2005 06:31 AM