The numbers behind the rank - The Indian Football Team

The Indian football team just attained it's highest ever FIFA ranking since 1996. India is now ranked 101 in the world. And the best that we have ever been is 100.

Undoubtedly, the football scene in India is looking up. Personally, I have been to more iLeague games than IPL games and that's something I am really proud of. There's no point supporting football teams in England and Spain, if you can't do the same for your country's league (inspite of the vastly lower quality of football). (+10 points to Team Sagaran for patriotism :) ) With ISL bringing the monies to the game, things are only going north wards as far as popularity goes.

However, one thing that has remained a bit of a unknown is how these rankings work. With a bit of browsing, I now have a better idea. (Thank you Internet!)
LINK : https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/men/
LINK : https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/procedure/men.html


The FIFA rankings are based on the points accumulated over the last 4 years.
A team’s total number of points over a four-year period is determined by adding:
i) the average number of points gained from matches during the past 12 months; and
ii) the average number of points gained from matches older than 12 months (depreciates yearly).

Points are awarded for winning (or drawing matches). However, no 2 matches are equal.
Depending on the importance of the match, quality of opponents palyed and the strength of the confederations to which the teams owe allegiance, the points earned for a win can vary a lot. The formula for points goes something like this

P = M x I x T x C

Where

M: Points for match result
Teams gain 3 points for a victory, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a defeat. In a penalty shoot-out, the winning team gains 2 points and the losing team gains 1 point.

I: Importance of match
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

T: Strength of opposing team
The strength of the opponents is based on the formula: 200 – the ranking position of the opponents. As an exception to this formula, the team at the top of the ranking is always assigned the value 200 and the teams ranked 150th and below are assigned a minimum value of 50. The ranking position is taken from the opponents’ ranking in the most recently published FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.

C: Strength of confederation
When calculating matches between teams from different confederations, the mean value of the confederations to which the two competing teams belong is used. The strength of a confederation is calculated on the basis of the number of victories by that confederation at the last three FIFA World Cup™ competitions (see following page). Their values are as follows:
CONMEBOL 1.00
UEFA 0.99
AFC/CAF/OFC/CONCACAF 0.85



If you look at India's points over the last 4 years, their best performance was 85 points in 2015. And this year they have earned 260 points, almost thrice of their earlier best (And we aren't even half way through 2017 ), which speaks volumes of the improvement this year. And the results are there for everyone to see. They have won 11 out of their last 13 matches.

 As you can see beating Myanmar (rank 166) in a AFC Asian Cup Qualifier gives a lot more points than beating a similar ranked Cambodia (rank 173) in a friendly.

Now let's have a look at how Argentina, who is currently ranked 2, has earned their points.
Their single win against Chile (rank 4) in a world Cup qualifier, gave them 1470 points. I guess that's more points than India have ever earned in their entire footballing history.

So for India to climb higher in the rankings, it's a no-brainer that they'll have to firstly play and win more international matches. But given that we fall in the Asian Confederation, and given that we generally play teams that are way lower in the rankings, the Indian team would need more wins to earn the same points that a country from a higher ranked association can earn with fewer wins.

We would have to play more matches and with higher ranked teams. Also, it goes without saying that winning against higher ranked teams from higher ranked associations would be that much more tougher. But again when the times get tough, the tough get going. That is what football is all about, right?