FIFA ranking: November 2020 final preview

Here is the final preview of the November 2020 ranking. FIFA will publish this ranking next Thursday November 26th. This ranking will be used to seed the UEFA teams for the draw of the European qualifying groups for the World Cup 2022 in pots of 10 teams. The draw is on December 7th.

The cancelled UNL-match Romania-Norway was awarded 3:0 to Romania and as such included in this ranking. It was just enough, together with the sudden collapse of Russia, to seed Romania in pot 2.

No news yet on the also cancelled match Switzerland-Ukraine. If that match is, as expected, awarded to Switzerland 7 points will be exchanged from Ukraine to the Swiss, compared to their respective points presented below.

And this November Week of Football already concludes NT-football for this strange year. There's currently only one match scheduled for the remainder of the year: an Asian WC qualifier between Qatar and Bangladesh, to give the Qatari's ample time to play next Summer's Copa America in June and the Gold Cup in July as guest team.

FIFA ranking November 2020: preview results

Here are the scheduled matches counting for the FIFA November 2020 ranking with FIFA's Home Team Win Expectancy (We) in % and the points exchanged in case of Win, Draw or Loss of the home team. 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 ranking November 2020: preview

Here are the minimum and maximum points for each team in the November 2020 ranking. FIFA will publish the ranking on November 26th.

Minimum and maximum points per team are determined with a small piece of software which calculates per match the minimum and maximum possible points for each participating team, given the minimum and maximum starting values of both teams before the match.

Note that only scheduled (and included) matches with both teams known at calculation time are incorporated in this analysis.

FIFA ranking: November 2020 probable ranking

The upcoming November FIFA window will see the return of African competitive NT-football. They resume their AFCON 2021 (already postponed to January 2022) qualifying campaign with match days 3 and 4 of 6. CONMEBOL continues their qualifying campaign for the World Cup 2022 with match days 3 and 4 of 18 and UEFA continues with the last two match days in the group stage of the UEFA Nations League 2021. Also this window is extended with 1 day for UEFA teams so there is room for a third match day which will be filled with the single-leg finals of the four EURO 2021 qualifying play-off paths. Of the other 47 UEFA teams only Armenia will not play a friendly on that day.

There are also a few friendlies scheduled for CONCACAF and AFC teams although their competitive matches are postponed to March next year.

FIFA ranking: November 2020 probable results

Here are the probable results of all currently scheduled matches up to and including November 22nd, used to calculate the November 2020 probable ranking. The results are generated using elo ratings.

Also the already played matches since October 19th, (probably) counting for the November ranking, are presented.

UEFA Nations League 2020 simulations (October 2020)

Matchdays three and four in the group stage of the UEFA Nations League 2020-2021 have been played last week in the October window.

After the UNL group matches the November 2020 ranking will then be used to seed the draw of the 10 European qualifying groups for the World Cup 2022 in Qatar.

I've made 10.000 simulations of all the currently scheduled matches for UEFA teams to be played in the November window. All probabilities in %.

FIFA ranking: October 2020 final preview

Here is the final preview of the October 2020 ranking. FIFA will publish this ranking next Thursday October 22nd.

Best movers:

6 - Malta

5 - Algeria, Paraguay, Hungary

Worst movers:

-10 - Romania

-8 - Andorra

-6 - Bulgaria