Singapore’s FIFA World Ranking Increases From 173 To 170 Despite Losing 2 Matches In November
Remember when we briefly talked about how dismal our country’s football team performed this year? Well, according to FIFA, it seems that our performances may not be that bad. If you subscribe to their ranking system that is.
The world’s football governing body released its monthly rankings for the month of November and boy, were we shocked at the results. Despite winning zero matches in 2017, losing two matches in the month of November itself, FIFA results revealed that the Singapore national football team rose by three ranks from 173rd to 170th position.
If that was not surprising enough, Singapore leapfrogged traditional rivals Malaysia, claiming their 170th spot and leaving Harimau Malaya at an all time low ranking of 174. This is despite the fact that our neighbours also lost two matches in the month of November as well.
Abysmal season?
The Lions played a grand total of 10 matches in 2017, drawing three and losing the rest. As such, it was inevitable that our FIFA World Ranking suffered as we dropped to our lowest ranking (173rd in Oct 2017) since the governing body first rolled out its ranking system in 1992.
However, we could not understand how, despite losing two more matches against Lebanon on 9 Nov and Bahrain on 14 Nov, we managed to increase our FIFA rankings.
Neighbours Malaysia, who also suffered two loses in the same month following a two 4-1 thrashings by North Korea on 10 Nov and 13 Nov, dropped to 174th place.
Surely that must be some mistake right? Well, that is not the case.
The math behind FIFA rankings
Struggling to understand how Singapore achieved this astounding feat, we decided to do some research on how FIFA computes its world rankings. Here is what we found out.
FIFA assigns points to each international ‘A’ matches played. Points are assigned based on this formula:
Points = Match Result x Match Status x Opposition Strength x Regional strength
Match Result
A team is awarded 3 points for a victory, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a lost. In the event that a match goes down to a penalty shoot-out, the winner is awarded 2 points, while the loser gets 1 point.
Match Status
This criteria awards points based on how important the match is. Friendly matches are awarded 1 point while FIFA World Cup or Confederation-level qualifiers are given 2.5 points.
If a team plays a confederation-level final competition or a FIFA Confederations Cup, they will be awarded 3 points for playing those type matches.
The highest number of points, 4, is awarded for a Fifa World Cup final competition.
Opposition Strength
This is calculated based on the strength of the opponents. Its is derived from taking 200 minus the most recent FIFA World Ranking of the opposition. Teams that ranked 150th and below will alwas be assigned a minimum value of 50.
Regional Strength
This number is based on how a regional performs in international competitions. This is the table of points allocated to countries that belong to the respective footballing regions:
Our theory on the rise in ranking
Although we could understand how points were allocated for each match, we still couldn’t reach a definitive explanation for our rise in the rankings given that both countries have competed in different numbers of matches. Here is a probable explanation.
FIFA uses the points scored over a 48-month time period, with the more recent results carrying a higher weightage and the older one affecting the FIFA ranking to a smaller extent. Comparing the results of the matches played by Singapore and Malaysia this year, our nation drew 1 match more than Malaysia. This would give us a slight edge over our footballing rival.
It would also mean that since Nov 2014, Singapore has won/drew more international ‘A’ matches than Malaysia.
Rank does not directly translate into better football
Given that the Lions have ended the year, win-less, a rise in our FIFA rankings does not necessarily bode well for Singapore.
The only way that Singaporeans will feel that our football team has truly improved is if we perform well in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta.
Featured image from Facebook.
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