Going up in the world!

Going up in the world!

Hi all,

haha those rankings are such a joke arent they

It can be very useful for arranging higher profile friendlies though, people always prefer playing higher ranked teams as they can then get more points themselves (or so I understand it)

absolutely, and useful for securing a UK contract - although, a bit of talent helps as well.

Stupid Saffa reporter hasn't bothered to check where we are in the rankings
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=859017



Then it may mean that we end up in the other pool from both Iraq and South Africa, which would make us fodder.

If you check my predictions on ranking points after the November Fiji match. In the YF "latest ranking thread" below, you will see that we are looking at a 38th to 38th FIFA ranking come Dec rankings, our highest ranking ever.

We are also top contender for the FIFA best mover of the year award having moved from our worst placing ever to our best placing ever including the having the best month move of 57 places (for the last 4 years at least) with the next 6/18 places to get before the year is out.

http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6166&PN=2

Who said that Australia moving to AFC was a bad thing for us and that we should follow suit?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

As for the confederation draws. . .

The FIFA Organising Committee will divide the teams into groups by seeding and drawing lots in public, taking into account geographic and sporting considerations. The host country, South Africa, will be seeded as team A1 and play in the opening match.

For a start;

Group 1
South Africa
Spain

Group 2
Italy
Egypt

Either

One Pot group:
New Zealand
USA
Iraq
Brazil

or

Pot A:
USA
Brazil

and

Pot B:
Iraq
New Zealand.

It was alway on the cards that we could end up in the other pool to Iraq and South Africa, but the odds are same for getting one or them or both of them in the same pool. So don't get to worry until the draw comes out.

If one pot then nothing is certain, if two pots then we wouldn't play Iraq in pool game.

We need to beak the 50th place mark first for UK player contracts. It used to be 80th place but it got tighter by the Home Office.

Edit: Home office automatically grant work permits to players from nations ranked in the top 70, and who had played in 75% of the country�s �A� matches in the previous two years.

But as you may have read in my predictions, we are looking at 38th to 36th placing in Dec rankings if we win against Fiji in Nov.

So I hope that Ricki Herbert does not experiment too much on a WCQ match and make sure of the win in Samoa. to secure our placings for the following yearAllWhitebelievr2008-10-09 14:42:51

NZ Footballs release says 70.

...and the game is not in Samoa it's in Fiji.
Hard News2008-10-09 14:41:57

With our new ranking we could hopefully get a couple of teams to play us in friendly matches in NZ.

Oh back there huh? Another change not picked up again by me.

I was sure I read it being 50 over a year of so back, anyway that does not mean we should put on kid gloves for that Fiji match. Can someone tell Ricki not to experiment this match, it has a high price tag for points. I don't think we like to see a sudden drop in points to a lower team at this stage.

could you be a little more specific about where we could be placed in December?

Our database guru Edgar said 60th for year end "it will be 84 extra points and a total of 507. That's about 60th place." 
 http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6166&PN=2    , and says 57th for November http://www.football-rankings.info/2008/10/fifa-ranking-november-2008-probable.html

Well actually it a bit harder to get work permits for the players.



It's over 75% A-internationals over two years and All Whites has to average 70th or better for two years. Currently from October 2006 to October 2008 our average ranking is just over 115th.

We have to wait two years first. AllWhitebelievr2008-10-09 23:14:09

Mmmmm . . . I totally use the FIFA website and their calculations to get only one team result and get final FIFA ranking points and then simply compare to the existing rankings to get a picture where the total points gets what placing if it was to apply in the existing table.

I imagine Edgar uses a mixture of existing FIFA point system to start off with and then using the Elo rating system points, make his 95% likely match outcomes from historical head to heads (or a guess if they have not met based on similar teams), hence the multiple draws for many matches as they are too close to call. Then after he generated results, he recalculated those match results into his software (excel or access or whatever) that does his FIFA calculations for him (which includes his drop off points at each countries month point over the last four years.) And he produces the probable table. He can test his FIFA table software when he plugs in the actual match results to produce identical tables.

I prefer Elo rating points over FIFA ranking points because it is mathematically accurate and is based on the straight line graph of Y=Mx +C principles. So the tougher your opponent is the steep the gradient it is and the higher placed your opponent is the more you move along the line. So it is easier to predict the teams rating points and so more accurate placings. Historical data is the most accurate data to used (reasons why Edgar uses it) but if you don't play you stay where you are in the placings. You can bring a rule over from chess Elo ratings and so if there is no activity for a time (like two years) then the team is temporary removed until there is activity.

Mmmm   Edgar predicted that Fiji will be placed 135th equal with two other teams in November. I predicted that Fiji will not change from 138th it is now but that is without other teams being considered so it could be 135th= as he said. I'm going to assume that was not the case. It means there are more points for the Fiji win compare to mine.

Seems that Edgar uses Elo historical data and FIFA present data to predict, I simply use FIFA historical and present data. For certain matches i use Elo rating as a check. And I use FIFA present data as unchanged future data for rankings places. He's comphensive, mine serves only one team. We have different approaches to the same data. His way is computer oriented but mine is more pen and paper. :) He uses a build up method and I use the FIFA site and then make a moving average using their tools by adding and dropping of points to the body of data because it is quicker.

Anyway

We are on 584 points as it is.

In the next two months, the two Vanuatu WCQ games about a years ago, we lose 50% of those points. That is like dropping points from a whole WCQ game. But if we win against Fiji WCQ game in November then we gain points from a whole WCQ game. So we do even better as Fiji is higher placed than Vanuatu and so there are more points to get. Therefore we should get greater than 584 points.

In fact I just made my two corrects in my other prediction because I stuffed up.

First, I changed the index to multiple by 2.5 for WCQ and not 1 for Friendlies. I miscalculated the match as a friendly and not as WCQ game.

Second, I divided the gained Fiji points by 5 as we had less than 5 games and so only 1/5 of the points are counted into the final FIFA ranking points for NZ.

I made out that the we have should have 638.95 points which will gives us about roughly 46th place on the current October 2008 rankings.

So mid 40s FIFA ranking in the table. Roughly 46th place should we win against Fiji.

http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6166&PN=2AllWhitebelievr2008-10-10 02:10:50

I can sleep better at night for that AWB - can you please change your user name to Stato?

I guess it does not matter if we are ranked 54th or 30th.
The only thing that really counts is that the AW's are good enough to beat the 5th placed team from Asia.I just can;t see it.

Taking into account JD and reg22's earlier posts, I'd say yes, it does matter

But as Reg said, it only matters if you have the talent to take advantage of it...
Also, it's hard to see how we can stay ranked this highly for any decent length of time.el grapadura2008-10-13 08:55:05