THE CURRENT RANKING SYSTEM
FIFA announced in September of 2017 that they were looking to revamp the ranking system, with any changes likely to be put in place after the conclusion of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification process. In the end, the new ranking system was put in place in the wake of the 2018 World Cup proper, with the new-look system modelled after the Elo rating system. One of the biggest chances was the ranking of teams updated after each game that was played.
The weighting system for each of the FIFA confederations was abandoned for the new system, whilst whether the team was home or away and how many goals it won by continued to be ignored. The hope was that the new system would be in place in July, but because no matches were played that month it had to wait until August to be used. When it was eventually released, the following formula was used:
Pseeding = 1600 – (R – 1) x 4,
R was the ranking in June 2018, so if two or more teams had an equal ranking back then, then the following team was given the next possible rank. In other words, if two teams were R=5 then the next team was R=6, rather than R=7. The ratings were then changed after the following game played. This saw some dramatic changes, like previous top rank Germany falling to 15th.
From April 2021, the ranking points of a team have been calculated to two decimal points, as opposed to being rounded to the closest integer.
When a major tournament rolls around, everyone begins to talk about the coefficient of the teams involved as if it is just understood by everyone. Whilst we all understand the basic theory of it the coefficient and ranking systems being used to outline which the best teams are at any given...
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