It is the day before the start of the European Championship, and it feels like a good time to publish the latest BFFA World Rankings!
You can only beat what’s in front of you.
– Every England fan in June/July 2018
As England prepare for their next tournament and Europe’s elite players warm-up for some competitive summer football, all the old clichés begin to creep back onto our screens and into our radios. “You can only beat what’s in front of you” is oft-heard this time of year and as teams compete to be called the best in Europe some victories will, no doubt, be undermined by the critics who scoff and say “pfft, my gran could’ve scored against them!”
We in the BFFA are in a similar position. Without switching to a forty-team all-against-all melee every year, how can we possibly know who is the best manager? Sure – we all play nine other teams week in, week out, sure – the most successful sides play out a Champions League tournament the following year, sure – we all have a go at the BFFA Cup. All of these are designed to reward the best teams and to showcase their talent, but can we really know who is the best of all time? Is there a way that we can quantify how good they are and how hard they are to beat? FIFA think they have a way.
Three years ago, shortly after we last published our world rankings, FIFA reassessed their system and made some big changes to how footballing nations around the world are graded. Previously, countries were given points for wins, draws and losses, and an average was taken at the end of every year. The new system re-writes the table after every game and points are awarded (and taken away) according to how likely a team was to win each match.
I have put all our results back into the ‘puter and run each game through the new equation. Towards the end of the article is a table that will display who are the toughest teams to beat, who has struggled and succeeded each season, and who is the best of us all.
Every team started off on a nice, round 1,000 points, so if you’re above that mark then you’re doing well. Kudos. You can see how you rank against all the other teams, your rivals, next season’s opponents, etc. It is a great way of gauging the chances of winning against them and measuring how good a win really is (or isn’t). What this also means is that we could, if desired, update the table of global awesomeness after every round of games next season. Food for thought.
Anyway, I will go through a few simple examples below to explain how it works before giving you our new World Rankings. But, if you want to skip straight to the good stuff, I won’t be offended!
The new FIFA ranking system
The Maths
Our World Rankings – an introduction
THE BFFA WORLD RANKINGS!
The New FIFA World Ranking System
Link: The current FIFA Men’s World Rankings
A controversy arose a few years ago when it was discovered that some nations were manipulating FIFA’s World Rankings by selecting friendlies against weak teams to quickly gain more points and improve their standing. A lot of boffins got together and devised a new system that would be fairer and less dependant on an annual average score.
The new format is a variation of the Elo-rating system, named after Arpad Elo, already used in a variety of sports such as baseball, basketball, table tennis, board games, eSports, etc. FIFA’s new format is called “SUM” because it adds and subtracts points for both teams after every game. In FIFA’s words:
The new model for calculating the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking (FWR) was developed over two years during which time a large number of different algorithms was tested and extensively discussed.
The points which are added or subtracted are partially determined by the relative strength of the two opponents, including the logical expectation that teams higher in the ranking should fare better against teams lower in the ranking.
So basically, if you beat a team that is much stronger, much more successful than you, then you score really well. If you beat a team much weaker than you then your score will improve, but by much less. You will lose points for losing matches and also for drawing against weaker teams.
Let me give you a couple of examples and I’ll break down how it works afterwards.
If two teams, evenly matched, met in a friendly for example, then the win expectation for both teams is 50/50.
Let’s say they both have 1,000 points before the game. The friendly is worth 10 points. Each team stands to win five points for a win and the loser loses the same amount. Neither team gain or lose anything for a draw.
| Points Before | Chance of Winning | Points after if Team A win | Points after if they draw | Points after if Team B win | |
| Team A | 1000 Pts | 50% | 1005 Pts | 1000 Pts | 995 Pts |
| Team B | 1000 Pts | 50% | 995 Pts | 1000 Pts | 1005 Pts |
It’s a bit different in reality as there’s never really an evenly-matched game. But the good thing about this method is that we can see ahead of the game how many points each team can earn (and lose).
Let’s say that USA play Jamaica in an International Qualifier. Qualifiers are worth a share of 25 points.
With these nations’ points as they are currently, there is a 122.77 point difference between the pair. According to FIFA’s equation, that gives USA a win expectation of 61.6%.
So, that 25 points gets divided 61.6/38.4 and is assigned against each team winning.
– If Jamaica win, against the odds, they would win 15.39 points (61.6% of 25 points). In that case, USA would lose the same number of points.
– If USA win, as expected, they would win 9.61 points (38.4% of 25), and Jamaica would lose the same amount.
– If the game ended in a draw, Jamaica gain 2.89 points and USA lose 2.89 points.
| Points Before | Chance of Winning | Points after if Team A win | Points after if they draw | Points after if Team B win | |
| USA | 1555.42 Pts | 61.6% | 1565.03 Pts | 1552.53 Pts | 1540.03 Pts |
| Jamaica | 1432.65 Pts | 38.4% | 1423.04 Pts | 1435.54 Pts | 1448.04 Pts |
The formula looks like this:
Pnew = Pbefore + (M x (W – 1 / (10 x (-D/600) + 1)))
Pnew is the number of points after the match.
Pbefore is the number of points before the match.
M is the value of the Match Importance.
W is 1 for a win, 0.5 for a draw, 0 for a loss.
W is also 0.5 for losing a penalty shootout and 0.75 for winning a penalty shootout.
D is the points difference between the teams before the match.
There are exceptions for knockout games. If a team loses a knockout game, no points are taken away (negative points are not given for knockout matches).
If a match goes to a penalty shootout, then the losing team would get points as if it was a draw (unless that would give them a negative score, in which case they’d get zero). The winning team would get a bit more (W=0.75), but again no negative scores would be given for winning a shootout.
The BFFA World Rankings
So what you’re about to see is how we compare after seven seasons, using FIFA’s current formula. Every team enters the frame with 1,000 points and then gain/lose points for every game they have played. Their new score is then used going into the next match.
All the League games have been valued at 25 points – the same as international qualification matches, which operate in a league format. BFFA Cup and Champions League games are worth 50 points before the Quarter-Finals and 60 points for the QFs, the Semis and the Finals – the same as World Cup matches.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Official BFFA World Rankings!
After another big, title-winning season, Smash & Grab climbed from third to first in the rankings, overtaking Premier League rivals FC Santa Barbara and The Money Team. Housewives Favourite moved up eighteen places from 44th to 26th, and Route 57 FC climbed from 24th to 8th after they both won their Leagues this term.
The biggest shift up was executed by Ole’s at the Wheel. After their final-day win over Jaysokker the previous season, they narrowly returned above the starting mark, ending the season on 1000.25 points. This season they made a huge improvement, climbing twenty-three spots from 55th to 32nd and also climbing the ladder up to League One.
The biggest League win, by these standards, came this year when Chicken and Bacon Sane (ranked 74/74 at the time) beat Webuiltthis City (ranked 15/74) in Gameweek 5. That victory was worth 22.12 points and helped them climb off the bottom of the rankings. Web City dropped four places to nineteenth.
Statistically, the biggest win of all time also played out this season, when Housewives Favourites (28th) knocked Vanishing Spray (7th) out of the Winter Cup at the Quarter-Final stage. Wives’ Fave were only given a 19.5% chance of winning, but went onto the Semi-Finals with a 54-33 win over the Premier League side. Their score improved by 48.88 and they instantly climbed four places. Closely behind that was Tralfamadore Zoo’s BFFA Final victory in Season 4, which earned them a massive 48.55 ranking points.
Next season, the top eight ranked teams will all be competing for the Premier League title. New boys Route 57 FC, who scored the most ranking points this season, will be taking on the top flight for the first time, and they will be joined by two former Premier League Champions returning to the top tier – GoFYS FC and SB Town United Athletic Onion Baggers.
Thanks for reading.
Enjoy the Euros if you can.
Have a great summer!
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