England unseeded in the World Cup Final's

The Swiss side is unbeaten for 14 games and has recently beaten Germany und Brasil in Friendlies. That's a lot of points there...

 

We beat Spain, drew to Brazil etc. remained unbeaten throughout our Group.

Brazil won the Confederations Cup and are somehow 11th, underneath us.

The FIFA rankings are ridiculous to say the least.

 

England have pretty much done the same though, let be honest. We've not lost a game since the 4-2 to Sweden over a year ago.

 

And therein lies Fifa's problem - in seeking to legitimise friendlies and non-competitive summer "competitions" by giving them as much (or close to it) weighting as the proper matches, they end up with messed up rankings like these.

 

But recent games count more than older games. Brazil is underneath both of us since they did not have to qualify for the upcoming WC and therefore weren't able to gain any points. The ranking is done by mathematics, not politics. Don't get me wrong, the ranking has its flaws and I don't see our side in the top 8, but still. We've done exceptionally well recently.

 

But if recent games count more, how are Switzerland above us if we have pretty much done the same?

 

Friendlies give less points than competitive games.

Multiplier:

Friendly match (including small competitions): I = 1.0

FIFA World Cup™ qualifier or confederation-level qualifier: I = 2.5

Confederation-level final competition or FIFA Confederations Cup: I = 3.0

FIFA World Cup™ final competition: I = 4.0

 

1. You have not done the same. We are unbeaten in 14 games since August 2012, you are unbeaten in 10 games since November 2012.

2. It also matters against whom you played and won.

The ranking is not broken, you can argue about the sense of it.

http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/procedureandschedule/menprocedure/index.html

EDIT:

These are the exact points for both England and Switzerland:

Switzerland:

Points in the past 4 years
Average Weight Avg. Weight
2010 385.03 20% 77.01
2011 468.75 30% 140.63
2012 500.85 50% 250.43
2013 669.63 100% 669.63
Total 1138

England:

Points in the past 4 years
Average Weight Avg. Weight
2010 685.58 20% 137.12
2011 491.2 30% 147.36
2012 619.77 50% 309.88
2013 485.46 100% 485.46
Total 1080

 

Then can you explain how we went down from 4th to 17th while Switzerland went from 13th to 16th to 7th in the same period?

 

But do you think Switzerland would beat England or Brazil in a tournament?

 

Still makes no sense to me.

FIFA's rankings are just stupid anyways. What's wrong with just using the same mathematical system that normal leagues use?

 

There's too much common sense involved.

 

Good point.

 

Do you think the ranking is wrong (like, mathematically)? I'm a bit confused if I'm honest. I can't reconstruct every single movement within the ranking, there aren't enough informations available about that. But it is probably due to how much games you won, against whom and how other good teams performed....

 

Uhm I don't know. Probably not. I think I mentioned this before, it's not about which team is the best (if you look at the side). It is about, let me quote, "any team that does well in world football wins points which enable it to climb the world ranking. "

 

We aren't saying the calculations are incorrect, they are calculated the way FIFA thinks they should be. But there are some teams in the top 10, that shouldn't be there, Switzerland included.

 

But surely, the point of ranking teams, is to determine which are the best teams in the world. The thing is, I can't think of a better system, but it doesn't mean the system we have now is the best.

 

Nothing against Switzerland, great side, but they should not be above Italy, Netherlands or England in the World Rankings.

They aren't the only ones, Colombia and probably Uruguay as well.

 

The World Elo Rankings look slightly more logical than FIFA's:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings