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Friday, November 28, 2014

FIFA Ranking: Team of the Year and Mover of the Year

Every December, FIFA will announce the Team of the Year and Mover of the Year award winners, based on the FIFA ranking.

Since the top 23 of the December ranking will be the same as this month, obviously the Team of the Year will be Germany.


FIFA Ranking: December 2014 preview and probable ranking

FIFA will publish the ranking on 18 December.

A quiet interval in terms of matches. The AFF Championship trudges along. This tournament will have matches included in three editions of the FIFA ranking, as the final matches will be included in the January 2015 ranking. There's also an odd South Africa - Côte d'Ivoire friendly, plus some friendlies in Asia as teams begin final preparations for the AFC Asian (thanks thebear!) Cup.

Only the aforementioned African friendly will affect the top 50, with China's and Uzbekistan matches affecting the top 100.

FIFA Ranking: Greatest upsets (28 November 2014)

About three years ago, I've updated the greatest upsets list. Since then, I kind of forgot about them until the Faroe Islands pulled off a shocking win in Greece. A question in the Guardian prompted a deep dive in my database. I've sent them the results and John Ashdown suggested I should publish them here. Thanks for mentioning my blog, John!

EURO 2016: Final draw coefficients (28 November 2014)

The coefficients for the EURO 2016 final draw will take into account results from:

UEFA EURO 2012 (qualifying competition and final tournament) - 20%
2014 FIFA World Cup (qualifying competition and final tournament) - 40%
UEFA EURO 2016 (qualifying competition: group matches) - 40%

These coefficients will also be used for the play-off draw seeding.

Friday, November 21, 2014

2018 FIFA World Cup seeding (UEFA): 10000 simulations (21 November 2014)

See previous simulation results.

As usual with competition/pot sims, I used ClubElo's expected goals formula. Games up to and including 20 November 2014.

Very important: this is based on the fixtures list from FIFA.com. If teams schedule other friendlies things will look different.

Based on these 10000 simulations, these would be the pots. Teams are sorted by the average pot over the 10000 sims.

FIFA Ranking: November 2014 final preview

FIFA will publish the ranking on 27 November.

6 matches left - all friendlies as far as FIFA is concerned. The semifinals of the Gulf Cup and the first round of group stage matches of the AFF Suzuki Cup.

These matches won't affect the top 80.

Does the FIFA ranking matter to coaches?

Most of the national team coaches seem to ignore the ranking. It seems there's at least one coach taking another stance.