New FIFA rankings

Finish the year in 23rd

Jaysus

To think about some the fellas on here going on about them after the Glasgow game in 2014

Edited by Denis Irwin - 22 Dec 2016 at 10:36am

Missy wrote: Only care about teams in our group as they stand in our way of reaching the World Cup

GB 1HughJarse wrote: We'll be back to 23rd again for March (ranked 14th in Europe). AFCON hasn't affected us. Rankings only really yo-yo after a tournament and from Sept-Nov when you can usually have 4 to 6 games with qualifiers/playoffs. Wales don't seem to have any 2017 friendlies lined up, whereas we have Ireland and Uruguay. Wales playing the FIFA "friendly avoidance" ranking game!

Sorry that should read that we have Iceland and Uruguay, we can't play with ourselves

Down to 25th for Feb, but projection is back to 23rd for March.

"If" we win tonight what sort of impact will the Mexico defeat have?

valo88 wrote: Green Devil wrote: "If" we win tonight what sort of impact will the Mexico defeat have? Obviously the result against Austria will be factored in after next week..... Using the prognosis tool on the FIFA rankings page having lost to Mexico and won against Uruguay we remain unchanged, they rule eachother out. IF, we win next week we can expect to jump up a few places, possibly inside the top 20.

FIFA rankings are possibly not going to be relevant again until the 2022 world cup qualifying draw. Given that that is probably over two years away, and that results drop in weighting over time, at present, they may not be hugely meaningful.

However, there is the *potential* for them to be relevant if we qualify for the next World Cup. The top seven ranked teams who qualify are all seeded first, along with Russia. Then every group gets one European team. There are thirteen European qualifying places, fourteen including Russia, which leaves a few teams who won't be seeded or in the main European pot. We won't be first seeds, obviously. The question is what happens the leftover European teams.

If less than five of the top seven ranked teams who qualify are European, say only three, which is likely if Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Argentina qualify, then there will be two European teams who end up in tough groups. That is, the eight seeds will have four European teams (Russia and three others). There will be eight European teams in another pot, and two left over.

There is a strong chance that it will be the two lowest ranked European teams who qualify who will end up in tougher groups: one of those four seeded South American teams, a European team and then themselves, along with one other team, likely from CONCACAF or Asia.

That means there is merit in not being among the bottom two ranked European teams. From the teams currently in first place in their groups, only Serbia are beneath us. From those in second place, Northern Ireland, Sweden, Montenegro and Greece are beneath us. There's a strong chance that, if we qualify, we'd be among the bottom two European teams.

Now, they could do it randomly again, like they did in 2014, but that was why there was an England, Italy, Uruguay group, as Uruguay were seeded, and Italy were drawn out as a random chance European team, rather than them having the two lowest ranked European sides drawn in those tougher groups. There was only one European side in that position last time around. I'm not sure they'll allow that to happen again. I think they'll not want to end up with, say, Argentina, Spain and Italy in one group, which could readily happen. They'd want to keep the biggest chance of the biggest teams getting through. They may not put that much thought into, though, so it could end up the same as last time. The seeding is likely to be the top 7 seeds plus Russia, a pot with CONCACAF and Asia, a pot with European teams and a final mixed pot with the leftover European teams, the leftover South American team(s) and the African teams. They have history for doing that, as it happened in 2006, when Serbia and Montenegro were the lowest ranked European team, and ended up with Argentina, Netherlands and Ivory Coast, where they lost all their games as a result, including a shellacking at the hands of Argentina.

So, is the FIFA ranking currently important? Maybe. It might not even matter if you are in the top European pot or one of the leftover teams, even if they do it by seeding: you could still be in the top European pot but still end up with a group like Brazil, Ireland, Mexico and Nigeria, or end up as a low seeded "leftover" team and get a group of Belgium, Ireland, Slovakia and DR Congo. There may not be a big difference, is the point, but more likely is it will have an effect, especially if they do the draw entirely by seeding, not with an element of random chance.

Obviously in the long run it is important, in the lead up to the 2022 qualifying draw, but at the moment, slightly less so, unless we qualify. In particular, it's not important because of the limited weight assigned to results over two years of age. Also, with the Nations League coming up, there will be less friendlies in the rankings anyway. It's the friendlies over the next twelve months we need to either not play, or win, as they are liable to have a bigger weight, assuming a July 2019 draw for the 2022 qualifiers.

Anyway, our results from the last year have so far given us an average weighting of 487.91 points. The Uruguay win was worth 549.24 points, but the Mexico loss was worth 0. Given that the points are an average, that'll cost us ranking points. However, a win over Austria would be worth a massive 1,225.125 ranking points. That would definitely help our average. We would definitely go up, albeit the weight assigned to our Euro 2016 results is dropping off in the next ranking. Those aren't actually that much (the two defeats brought the average right down) but they are still worth something, because of the bigger multiplier for them being in the finals rather than qualifying. A draw would drop a few points too, seeing as it is worth only 408.375 points.

Whoops, of course. Forgot about that!!