FIFA World Rankings

FIFA Team Rankings determines the relative balance of power on the world stage between all national football teams. The rating was first introduced in 1993, and in 2006, after the World Cup in Germany, it was reformed. The rating takes into account the performances of national teams over the past 4 years.

Over the twenty-year history of the ranking, only 8 teams have climbed to the top: Spain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Brazil, Belgium and Argentina. The main purpose of the FIFA National Teams Rating is to separate teams into different seedings during the draw of tournaments under the auspices of the organization. A total of 211 national teams are ranked, the last of which (San Marino, Bahamas and Anguilla) have zero in the Points column.

The rules for calculating the FIFA rating are quite complicated.
All games of national teams under the auspices of FIFA for the last 4 years are taken into account. In addition, the average score for each year is taken into account in the overall rating.

1) The number of points for each match depends on many factors, all of which cannot be listed. Let the functionaries do it but in short, the system works like this:

- victory in the main or additional. time brings 3 points;
- victory in the penalty shootout - 2 points;
- a draw or defeat in a penalty shoot-out is worth 1 point;
- defeat brings nothing.

There is also one interesting paradox in the system: a team gets 2 points for a victory on penalties, 1 for a loss score regardless of the outcome of playing time. Thus, if the team loses the first match with a score of 3:0, for example, and wins the second with the same score and wins the penalty shoot-out, he gets 2 points. If the team loses the first match with a score of 3:0, and in the second, she wins with a less convincing score and flies out, then she gets 3 points for the victory.

2) There are also coefficients for the importance of matches:

- friendly match - 1.0;
- qualification for the World Cup or continental championship - 2.5 ;
- the final stage of the continental championship and the Confederations Cup - 3.0;
- the final part of the world championship - 4.0 .

3) Also, teams receive different points depending on the strength of the opponent:

- 1st place - 200 points;
- places from 2nd to 149th - 200 minus the opponent's place (a victory over an opponent occupying 10th place, for example, will bring 190 points);
- places from 150th and below bring 50 points.

4) The level of football on different continents is also taken into account. Each of the regions has its own coefficient, which is also calculated according to certain formulas:

- UEFA - 1.0
- CONMEBOL (South America) - 1.0;
- CONCACAF (North America) - 0.88;
- CAF (Africa) - 0.86;
- AFC (Asia) - 0.86;
- OFK (Oceania) - 0.85.

If there are teams from different regions, then the average coefficient is calculated.

5) But that's not all! The age of the match is also taken into account to give more weight to recently played games:

- less than a year ago - 1.0;
- 12-24 months - 0.5;
- 24-38 months - 0.3;
- 36-48 months - 0.2.

The formula for calculating points for a match is as follows: points for the outcome of the match are multiplied by the coefficient of the importance of the match, the result is multiplied by the coefficient of the strength of the opponent, and all this is once again multiplied by the regional coefficient. After that, average ratings are calculated (the sum of points for all matches divided by their number) for each of the 4 time intervals. Points for each time period are multiplied by the prescription coefficient and summed up. The sum is the current score of each of the national teams.

FIFA rankings are updated once a month on Thursdays.