FIFA ranking: December 2023 final preview

FIFA will publish the December ranking next Thursday December 21st. This final preview contains 11 matches, out of 14 matches played since November 27th: the complete knock-out stage of the Pacific Games 2023 and one friendly. 

I expect both forfeited knock-out matches of the Cook Islands to be included. They apparently had to leave the Solomon Islands after the two matches in the group stage and didn't participate in the play-offs for the 5th place in the competition.

One other friendly Colombia - Mexico is scheduled for coming Saturday and it will be included also. This is how the points and positions of both teams could change:

	COL		MEX
result	pts	pos	pts	pos
COL win	1655,29	14	1652,70	15
draw	1652,79	15	1655,20	14
MEX win	1650,29	15	1657,70	14

Elo predicts a Colombia win.

Asian Cup of Nations 2023 simulations (December 2023)

In 2024 five of the six confederations have scheduled their continental championship for national teams. Here's number two in this series of simulation reports: Asia.

The Asian Cup of Nations 2023 was initially scheduled for June 2023 in Qatar. Just as with the World Cup last year the tournament couldn't be played in the Qatari Summer because it's much too hot there in that time of the year. So the continental showpiece had to be moved back to January 2024. That gave Qatar the opportunity to participate 'as guest' (or rather as the generous tournament sponsor who bought their berth) in the Gold Cup 2023 in the USA last July.

African Cup of Nations 2023 simulations (December 2023)

In 2024 five of the six confederations have scheduled their continental championship for national teams. To kick off a series of simulation reports I start with Africa.

The African Cup of Nations 2023 was initially scheduled for June 2023 in Ivory Coast. Much to the delight of several European top clubs, who otherwise would miss quite a few African top players from mid December to mid February during an important part of their domestic competition, CAF had already in 2019 decided to schedule the AFCON from that moment on in June instead of the usual month of January. 

However, with assigning the tournament to a tropical country (again), it became clear very soon that, just like the previous edition in Cameroon, the continental showpiece in 2023 had to be moved back to January 2024 due to unfavorable climatic conditions in the tropical Summer. Conditions really nobody could foresee...

FIFA ranking: November 2023 final preview

FIFA will publish this ranking next Thursday November 30th. This final preview contains 189 matches, out of 200 matches played since October 23rd.

The last round of four group matches in the Pacific Games 2023 is to be played tomorrow and Friday and three of those matches will be included in the November ranking (Tahiti - Northern Mariana Islands won't be, for obvious reasons). The knock-out stage of this tournament will be included in the December 2023 ranking.

Another way of ranking the international top scorers (II)

There came quite some reactions and suggestions on my first post about another way of ranking the international top scorers. I can only agree with the main criticism: the measure of how valuable the top scorer is, could be better contrived than by calculating the average elo-points of the opponent per goal scored. This measure indeed mainly indicated that some top scorers played mostly weaker opposition.

Some suggested to not take the average but just weigh the goals with some weigh factors. I agree, each goal scored should contribute -more or less- to the total score of a top scorer, not carry the danger that the total score got reduced.

FIFA ranking: November 2023 probable ranking

Here is the probable November 2023 ranking, to be published on Thursday November 30th. In the upcoming November window matches for the following tournaments will be played:

- the CONCACAF Nations League 2024 group stage in leagues B and C plays to a finish with match days 5 and 6. In league A the home-and-away quarter finals are scheduled. The winners qualify for the CNL Final Four in March 2024 and the Copa America 2024 next Summer. The 4 losers go to two one-off play-offs in March 2024 to determine the final two CONCACAF participants in the Copa America. For ranking calculation purposes I expect the new quarter final matches to have an I-factor of 25, same as the CNL Final Four matches;

- the qualification for EURO 2024 plays to a finish with match days 9 and 10. Both postponed matches of Israel from the October window are scheduled early in the November window;

- qualification for the World Cup 2026 continues with match days 5 and 6 in the South American group. Asia and Africa start with their group stage, playing match days 1 and 2. Eritrea seems to have withdrawn at the last moment. Fearing new bad publicity with players defecting after away matches they've chosen to not participate in the 10-match group stage. As a consequence they won't be ranked in the FIFA ranking in the foreseeable future;

- for the Pacific Games in Honiara on the Solomon Islands the 12 participants are drawn in 4 groups of 3 teams. The match schedule is not yet published. I've assumed a schedule to be able to incorporate the group stage matches in this ranking preview. The 3 OFC teams that were excluded in July from the FIFA ranking (Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga) will participate, so they will be ranked again in the November ranking.

- with all confederations in full swing very few friendlies are scheduled for this window.

FIFA ranking: November 2023 probable results

Here are the probable results of all 186 played and currently scheduled matches up to and including November 26th, used to calculate the November 2023 probable ranking. The results are generated using elo ratings. Also the already played matches since October 23rd, (probably) counting for the November ranking, are presented.