Posted April 11, 2015 23:29
· last edited April 11, 2015 23:39
The rankings also favour the UEFA countries because they're better at playing football than we are.
Well, most of them are. But I just don't understand why that gets factored in twice - if a team's ranking is factored in the points you receive for beating them, then why is the confederation they come from also factored in? Teams outside of UEFA and CONMEBOL get less points for beating the minnows in their region in competitive games than teams in those confederations get for their minnows. So that means that UEFA and CONMEBOL teams are then more likely to be in the top of the world rankings, which means they get seeded into World Cup groups, which means they get easier group games, which means the teams from other confederations are slightly handicapped, which means that they are more likely to get knocked out early. Then the FIFA rankings system says UEFA and CONMEBOL did better at the WC so games in those confederations are worth more and the cycle starts all over again. UEFA particularly benefits from this because there's a lot more minnow teams there than in CONMEBOL: Andorra, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Moldova, Malta, San Marino, etc. For instance, San Marino are ranked 194 in the world, and Vanuatu are 195, but if Belgium beat San Marino in a WC qualifier they'd get more ranking points than we would for beating Vanuatu in a WC qualifier, just because San Marino are a UEFA team. It's bizarre.
The ELO ranking system, which is how tennis rankings etc work too, always seemed to be fairer, but the website that used to show it for football has gone.