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Now the schedule for the UEFA Nations League 2023 Final Four is drawn, it's time to focus on the qualification for the EURO 2024 in Germany. There were 10 qualification groups drawn in October last year, 7 groups with 5 teams and 3 groups with 6 teams for a total of 53 participating teams. Germany as host is qualified automatically and Russia is banned for obvious reasons. Inexplicably, Belarus was allowed to participate though.
Yes, you read it correctly, FIFA will publish the next ranking only after the March window. Contrary to previous years there won't be an official ranking in the first week of February, even if there are three tournaments played to a finish this January:
Here are the probable results of all 213 played and currently scheduled matches up to and including March 28th, used to calculate the April 2023 probable ranking. The results are generated using elo ratings. Also the already played matches since December 20th, (probably) counting for the April ranking, are presented.
In the first column is indicated if the match is included or not, according to my inclusion-method. You see after the match identification data, the I-factor, the Home Team Win Expectancy (We) according to elo and according to FIFA in %.
For the already played matches the match result and the exchanged points are given.
For the scheduled matches the points exchanged in case of Win, Draw or Loss of the home team are given. In cases where matches can go to PSO, also the points exchanged when the home team wins (PSO-W) of loses (PSO-L) the penalty shoot-out are given.
FIFA will publish the ranking this Thursday December 22nd. Argentina is the new world champion and just couldn't catch Brazil at the top spot. This final preview contains 159 matches, out of 173 matches played since October 3rd.
Here is the probable December 2022 ranking, to be published on Thursday December 22nd. This ranking will include a lot of preparatory friendlies before the complete World Cup with the final on December 18th. Also the preliminary qualifier in two legs between Brunei Darussalam and Timor-Leste for the South East Asian Championships 2022 is scheduled.
This preview is calculated with elo-predicted results for all 133 currently played and scheduled and according to my method included matches, out of a total of 149 currently played and scheduled matches. See the probable results for a list of which scheduled matches are currently included.
Here are the probable results of all 133 played and currently scheduled matches up to and including the World Cup final on December 18th, used to calculate the December 2022 probable ranking. The results are generated using elo ratings. Also the already played matches since October 3rd, (probably) counting for the December ranking, are presented.
In the first column is indicated if the match is included or not, according to my inclusion-method. You see after the match identification data, the I-factor, the Home Team Win Expectancy (We) according to elo and according to FIFA in %.
An interesting question popped up in the discussions around my World Cup simulations and more specific the somewhat lower than expected predicted performance of Senegal compared to home nation Qatar in group A.
Amir commented:
"Elo indeed has a regional problem - since there are not many matches between teams from different confederations, it takes a long time for ELO to adjust to the actual average per confederation.
If the difference are getting smaller (which is something worth testing), it means that Elo will indeed under-estimate CAF."
Apart from the difficulty to determine the "actual average per confederation", I personally have the impression that elo ratings are not regionally biased, because there isn't anything in the elo calculation that's influenced by the team's confederation. But maybe, indeed the number of intraconfederational versus interconfederational matches a team playes could be the exogenous factor. I decided to give it a go and research this.
