CAF qualification World Cup 2022 simulations (August 2019)

Next month also starts the African qualification for the World Cup 2022 in Qatar with a first round, consisting of 14 home-and-away play-offs between the 28 lowest ranked African teams. The draw was July 29th.
The fourteen winners join the other 26 African teams to form 10 groups of 4 teams in the second round, a double round robin group stage. First matchdays of the second round will be in the March-window next year. The exact date for the draw of the group stage is not yet known. That will decide which FIFA-ranking will be used to seed the teams. FIFA will probably not publish a ranking in January or February next year, so for now I assume the December 2019 ranking will be used for seeding the draw for the group stage.

AFC qualification World Cup 2022 simulations (August 2019)

Next month starts the second round in Asian qualification for the World Cup 2022 in Qatar. After a first round of 6 play-offs between the 12 lowest ranked Asian teams in June, the six winners joined the other 34 Asian teams to form 8 groups of 5 teams in this second round, a double round robin group stage. The groups were drawn on July 17th.

CONCACAF Nations League 2020 simulations (July 2019)

Let's focus on the CONCACAF Nations League 2020. 

This competition will be played for the first time on six matchdays this Autumn, with a Final Four (2 one-off semi-finals and a final) in March next year. The composition of the leagues was determined in a qualification phase. The groups within the leagues were drawn last March.

There are 3 leagues, A - C. Each league consists of 4 groups. League A has three teams per group, league B has four teams per group. League C has 1 group of four and 3 groups of three teams. All teams in a group play against each other home and away.

FIFA ranking: July 2019 final preview

FIFA will publish the ranking this Thursday July 25th. 

I've assumed that of all NT-matches with two FIFA-members in it and played between June 12th and today the following friendlies will be excluded:
2019-06-14 Madagascar - Mauritania 1:3 (Morocco; 4x25 mins)

Included are all other friendlies and of course the high-valued matches in the continental cups (Copa America, Gold Cup and CAF Nations Cup). 
Then followed the not so aptly named Intercontinental Cup in India (which turned out to be between four Asian teams), the Pacific Games in Samoa and the still running Indian Ocean Island Games in Mauritius. These are all treated as friendly tournaments for the ranking calculation. So teams will lose points in knock-out matches in these tournaments.

Points per confederation

I was asked to analyse the number of points that per confederation are gained or lost through the new FIFA ranking calculation. An interesting question Amir, thank you.

The new ranking calculation is applied since June 4th 2018, some thirteen months now. In that time one World Cup and continental championships for CONMEBOL, CONCACAF, AFC and CAF were played. Tournaments with a relatively high weight were the UEFA Nations League, the CONCACAF Nations League qualifying and part of EURO and CAF qualifying. Tournaments with a relatively lower weight were several regional championships or qualifications for those. And of course a lot of friendlies were played, outside and inside official FIFA match windows.

FIFA ranking: July 2019 probable results (II)

Here are the probable results of all currently scheduled matches up to and including July 21st, used to calculate the July 2019 probable ranking. The results are generated using elo ratings. 

The 1 or 0 before each match indicates if the match is included (1) or not (0) according to my inclusion-method. Also the Expected Home Win Probability (We) according to elo is given for each match in %.

FIFA ranking: July 2019 probable ranking (II)

Yesterday Brazil and Mexico became champions of their confederation. The African Cup of Nations has just advanced to the quarter finals. The Pacific Games started today.

Here is a second preview of the probable July 2019 ranking, to be published on July 25th.

This preview is calculated with elo-predicted results for all 31 currently scheduled and according to my method included matches, out of a total of 39 currently scheduled matches. See the probable results for a list of which scheduled matches are included.