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World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

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Bob Gray said:
The article I read was focused on Brazil and issues it's having as the World Cup approaches. So it didn't touch on other leagues and just had a note that the top Brazil league has seen significant attendance declines to the point where it draws less than MLS.
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Interesting... They mention any reason why the brazil league is doing that bad with attendance?
 
Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
What was the last change?
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FIFA announced that the ranking system would be updated following the 2006 World Cup. The evaluation period was cut from eight to four years, and a simpler method of calculation is now used to determine rankings. Goals scored and home or away advantage are no longer taken into account, and other aspects of the calculations, including the importance attributed to different types of match, have been revised. The first set of revised rankings and the calculation methodology were announced on 12 July 2006.

This change is rooted at least in part in widespread criticism of the previous ranking system. Many football enthusiasts felt it was inaccurate, especially when compared to other ranking systems and that it was not sufficiently responsive to changes in the performance of individual teams.
The United States reached fourth in 2006 prior to the change. They dropped from 5th to 16th the month the rankings changed.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

Shirtless Guy said:
FIFA announced that the ranking system would be updated following the 2006 World Cup. The evaluation period was cut from eight to four years, and a simpler method of calculation is now used to determine rankings. Goals scored and home or away advantage are no longer taken into account, and other aspects of the calculations, including the importance attributed to different types of match, have been revised. The first set of revised rankings and the calculation methodology were announced on 12 July 2006.

This change is rooted at least in part in widespread criticism of the previous ranking system. Many football enthusiasts felt it was inaccurate, especially when compared to other ranking systems and that it was not sufficiently responsive to changes in the performance of individual teams.
The United States reached fourth in 2006 prior to the change. They dropped from 5th to 16th the month the rankings changed.
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These changes seem, on their face, to be reasonable. (For instance, the trailing eight-year period is a LONG time to base rankings on.) Is there any particular reason why these changes would have a disproportionate negative impact on the USA and/or CONCACAF in general? It seems to me that the big drop in the USA's ranking would have at least a bit to do with the fact that the change came right after the strong performance in the 2002 World Cup passed beyond the span of the trailing four-year period. Similarly, Turkey, who finished 3rd in the 2002 World Cup and DNQ for 2006 dropped 13 places that same month. On the other hand, Ghana and Switzerland, who both DNQ in 2002 but advanced from the group stage in 2006, jumped 23 and 22 places respectively that month.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

Shirtless Guy said:
FIFA announced that the ranking system would be updated following the 2006 World Cup. The evaluation period was cut from eight to four years, and a simpler method of calculation is now used to determine rankings. Goals scored and home or away advantage are no longer taken into account, and other aspects of the calculations, including the importance attributed to different types of match, have been revised. The first set of revised rankings and the calculation methodology were announced on 12 July 2006.

This change is rooted at least in part in widespread criticism of the previous ranking system. Many football enthusiasts felt it was inaccurate, especially when compared to other ranking systems and that it was not sufficiently responsive to changes in the performance of individual teams.
The United States reached fourth in 2006 prior to the change. They dropped from 5th to 16th the month the rankings changed.
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There are two big issues.

The first is the confederational fudge factor, basically FIFA admitting that they suck ad making a rating system and need to put a thumb on the scales to get it to come out "right". The really pernicious part of it is that we get a piece of that fudge factor in every single game we play, even if by some miracle we were to end up in the top five in the world, we'd still get our points downgraded in every game we play because we're from CONCACAF.

The second is that games in official competitions are worth a lot more than friendlies, and there's imbalance all over the world in when official competition games are being played and the quality of teams being played in those games. We could end up in the 20's not because of any fault in our results, but merely because European teams have been playing in the European Championship while we've been playing qualifiers against Antigua and Barbuda.

It's certainly true that we had a tendency toward being overrated under the old FIFA rankings formula, but it's also true that the new one has several built in brokennesses and is basically designed to screw everyone from CONCACAF and AFC.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

Craig P. said:
There are two big issues.

The first is the confederational fudge factor, basically FIFA admitting that they suck ad making a rating system and need to put a thumb on the scales to get it to come out "right". The really pernicious part of it is that we get a piece of that fudge factor in every single game we play, even if by some miracle we were to end up in the top five in the country, we'd still get our points downgraded in every game we play because we're from CONCACAF.

The second is that games in official competitions are worth a lot more than friendlies, and there's imbalance all over the world in when official competition games are being played and the quality of teams being played in those games. We could end up in the 20's not because of any fault in our results, but merely because European teams have been playing in the European Championship while we've been playing qualifiers against Antigua and Barbuda.

It's certainly true that we had a tendency toward being overrated under the old FIFA rankings formula, but it's also true that the new one has several built in brokennesses and is basically designed to screw everyone from CONCACAF and AFC.
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You'd think they could at least seed the qualifiers from each region when putting the draws together and place them into tiers so they go in reverse order into the pools that have the top seeds or something like that. I can't quite articulate what I mean but I hope the idea is clear enough: the top qualifiers in CONCACEF get the bottom qualifiers from UEFA or something like that.

It does seem like they deliberately favor Europe and the top 1 or 2 South American teams at everyone else's expense.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

A more complex way yet more fair way to do it is take the FIFA Rankings and rank all 32 teams place 1-7+Host in Pot 1, 8-15 in Pot 2, 16-23 in Pot 3, 24-31 in Pot 4.
Then when a team is drawn, they would go in the first group where there isn't another member from their confederation (or more than 1 with UEFA).

Here's what we could have had in 2010:
Group 1
South Africa 85 Africa
France 9 Europe
Australia 24 Asia
Honduras 35 N. America

Group 2
Italy 4 Europe
United States 11 N. America
Paraguay 21 S. America
South Korea 48 Asia

Group 3
Germany 5 Europe
Greece 16 Europe
Uruguay 25 S. America
North Korea 91 Asia

Group 4
England 7 Europe
Mexico 18 N. America
Algeria 29 Africa
New Zealand 83 Oceania

Group 5
Brazil 1 S. America
Portugal 10 Europe
Ivory Coast 19 Africa
Slovakia 33 Europe

Group 6
Spain 2 Europe
Chile 17 S. America
Denmark 27 Europe
Ghana 38 Africa

Group 7
Netherlands 3 Europe
Cameroon 14 Africa
Serbia 20 Europe
Japan 40 Asia

Group 8
Argentina 6 S. America
Switzerland 13 Europe
Nigeria 32 Africa
Slovenia 49 Europe
 
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Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

Craig P. said:
There are two big issues.

The first is the confederational fudge factor, basically FIFA admitting that they suck ad making a rating system and need to put a thumb on the scales to get it to come out "right". The really pernicious part of it is that we get a piece of that fudge factor in every single game we play, even if by some miracle we were to end up in the top five in the world, we'd still get our points downgraded in every game we play because we're from CONCACAF.

The second is that games in official competitions are worth a lot more than friendlies, and there's imbalance all over the world in when official competition games are being played and the quality of teams being played in those games. We could end up in the 20's not because of any fault in our results, but merely because European teams have been playing in the European Championship while we've been playing qualifiers against Antigua and Barbuda.

It's certainly true that we had a tendency toward being overrated under the old FIFA rankings formula, but it's also true that the new one has several built in brokennesses and is basically designed to screw everyone from CONCACAF and AFC.
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Thank you for clarifying.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

Regarding rankings: I know each match gives a certain amount of points then each match has a multiplier depending on what type of match (ie a WCQ game is higher than a friendly, a World Cup game is higher than a Continental Championship game).

The rub is that there is (or was) a Confederation multiplier for each teams total. Europe was a 1.0, S. America was like 0.9 and CONCACAF was like a 0.5.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

jmh said:
Thank you for clarifying.
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The biggest issue is that not all competitions are equally serious and with that being the case what to do about it? To do it straight is a rather big statistical challenge fraught with assumptions. Such a model would unlikely fly.

So in short, if you think Pairwise is bad, here's worse.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

Shirtless Guy said:
A more complex way yet more fair way to do it is take the FIFA Rankings and rank all 32 teams place 1-7+Host in Pot 1, 8-15 in Pot 2, 16-23 in Pot 3, 24-31 in Pot 4.
Then when a team is drawn, they would go in the first group where there isn't another member from their confederation (or more than 1 with UEFA).
Click to expand...

That's a better articulation of what I was trying to say in # 651. Thanks.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

Was looking at the breakdown for the 2014 world cup. It appears likely that CONCACAF will be paired with Asia again in whatever pot they end up.

To have a chance of not being paired that way, the seeded pot needs to end up 6/2 UEFA/CONMEBOL instead of 5/3. That would require Colombia to drop out of top 7.
 
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Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

Shirtless Guy said:
Was looking at the breakdown for the 2014 world cup. It appears likely that CONCACAF will be paired with Asia again in whatever pot they end up.

To have a chance of not being paired that way, the seeded pot needs to end up 6/2 UEFA/CONMEBOL instead of 5/3. That would require Colombia to drop out of top 7.
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Obviously, nobody will ever get paired with UEFA, so that leaves the CAF, CONMEBOL, and AFC for possibilities (and potentially OFC as an add-on). We were paired with CAF in 2002, and AFC in 2006 and 2010.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIII - "Pay" Up Pompey?

Shirtless Guy said:
A more complex way yet more fair way to do it is take the FIFA Rankings and rank all 32 teams place 1-7+Host in Pot 1, 8-15 in Pot 2, 16-23 in Pot 3, 24-31 in Pot 4.
Then when a team is drawn, they would go in the first group where there isn't another member from their confederation (or more than 1 with UEFA).
Click to expand...

They did something similar to this in 1998 where they used past World Cup performance along with past/current FIFA World Rankings to seed all 32 teams.
 
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