Argentina is not the best team in the world! A significant advance of the Polish national team in the FIFA rankings

Posted On: January 28, 2023

The Argentina national team became world champions, receiving the official status of the strongest team in the world. But according to ESPN, the Argentines will only be second in the updated International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) rankings. The FIFA national team positioning system became simpler after the 2018 World Cup in Russia, but it does not always reflect the status of a champion team.

Let’s start with the main question: what is the FIFA ranking for? Its main need is to use the list of national teams to create baskets during the draw of different tournaments (for example, the qualifying round of the Euro or the final part of the World Cup). Based on it, FIFA also awards prizes every year, and the English Football Association (FA) uses this national team assessment as one of the criteria for issuing work permits to foreign players.

In September 2017, FIFA announced a possible overhaul of the system following the completion of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers. The new ranking was launched at the end of the 2018 World Cup: it was released on August 16 and included Russian World Cup matches. The previous scoring system had been adopted in December 2005, but had several significant flaws: the score was the sum of the average number of points earned in each of the previous four years. For example, teams that had not played for four years were excluded from the list. World Cup host countries have also been the hardest hit, with each team having a regional coefficient.

The new formula is: post-match rating = pre-match rating + match importance factor * (match result – expected result).

Importance factors are of the following types:

5 – a friendly match outside the “windows” of the national team match schedule;
10 – a friendly match in the “windows” of the national team match schedule;
15 – Nations League group tournament matches;
25 – Nations League play-offs and finals;
25 – qualifying matches of confederations and world championships;
35 – matches from the final tournaments of the confederation championships to the quarter-finals;
40 – matches of the final tournaments of the confederation championships, starting from the quarter-finals;
50 – matches from the final World Cup tournament to the quarter-finals;
60 – matches of the final World Cup tournament from the quarter-finals.
The match score is calculated as follows:

0 – loss in regular time or overtime;
0.5 – draw or loss on penalties;
0.75 – victory on penalties;
1 – win in regular time or overtime;
The expected score is calculated as follows: 1/(10^(–difference in rank of the opponents before the match/600) + 1. From the rank of the team for which the calculation is made, the rank of its opponent is subtracted.

There are also special conditions. If penalty kicks are awarded after a game with a winner (i.e. after the second game of a two-game series), they are not taken into account for the calculation of the classification, the game is considered normal. And if a team does worse than expected in the knockout matches of the Finals tournaments (losing or winning on penalties against a much weaker team), their rating will not change.

The calculation of the average number of points scored by a team during the year, as well as the strength indicator of the Confederation are excluded from the new scoring system. According to the creators of the ranking, this has encouraged teams to play more friendly matches (previously some teams avoided them due to the negative impact on the average annual ranking), and the strength of teams from different confederations will be reflected more objectively. . In addition, the negative consequences of non-participation in the qualifying matches for the teams of the host countries of the tournament have been mitigated.

The teams are ranked in the FIFA ranking in descending order. If several teams have the same value, they occupy a position and the corresponding number of consecutive places is omitted from the list (for example, if two teams are ranked 10th, the next team will be ranked 12th; if three – then 13, etc. .).

The main advantage of the new system is the simplicity and convenience of counting. Now the fan himself can calculate the potential points of any team in case of different results of any match. In addition, under the new system, countries that host major tournaments and do not participate in the selection do not suffer. These teams don’t lose much because they get points for friendlies. Moreover, this system is considered to be much fairer than the old one: now a weak team gets tangible promotion to the top by beating a strong opponent. And friendlies don’t score much in the standings if one team is worse.

The only downside that can be identified is that all major continental tournaments are tied. For example, you can score as many points in the Asian Cup as in the Euros. Although the level of opponents and the difference in the class of teams in tournaments is quite noticeable.

Officially, the new FIFA rankings with Brazil in first, Argentina in second and France in third will be released on Thursday, December 22.

FIFA Ranking Top 20 December 2022:

1. Brazil;
2. Argentina;
3.France;
4. Belgium;
5. England;
6. Netherlands;
7. Croatia;
8. Italy;
9. Portugal;
10. Spain;
11. Morocco;
12. Switzerland;
13. United States;
14. Germany;
15. Mexico;
16. Uruguay;
17. Colombia;
18. Denmark;
19. Senegal;
20. Japan.

The Polish national team is ranked 22nd in the FIFA rankings, advancing up to 4 places from the previous ranking. In front of the Whites-Reds, the 21st place is occupied by the team of Peru, followed by Sweden, Iran and South Korea.