Tag Archives: FIFA

September 26, 2018 · 7:40 pm

Detalle de las votaciones para el premio FIFA The Best 2018

Ésta es una pequeña entrada futbolera para mirar el detalle de las votaciones para el premio FIFA The Best 2018 al mejor jugador del año, que fue ganado hace pocos días por Luka Modric.

Luka-Modric

¿Qué es lo que se premia?

De las reglas de FIFA para la organización del premio [PDF, 243 KB]:

Art. 2 The Awards reward the best in each category, regardless of championship or nationality, for their respective achievements during the period from 3 July 2017 to 15 July 2018 inclusive for the men’s awards and from 7 August 2017 to 24 May 2018 inclusive for the women’s awards.

Art. 3. The Awards are bestowed according to on-field performance and overall behaviour on and off the pitch.

Es por tanto una definición genérica: no se elige al que más goles meta, ni al que más títulos gane, ni al que gane el Mundial, ni la Super Copa de Europa, etc., se vota “al mejor por sus logros de acuerdo a la actuación en el campo y al comportamiento global dentro y fuera del terreno de juego”. A partir de ahí, cada uno vota al que quiera, siguiendo el procedimiento descrito a continuación.

¿Cómo se organiza la votación?

Según las reglas de FIFA para la organización del premio:

  • Un panel de 13 expertos (1) selecciona una lista de 10 jugadores sobre la que después votaran capitanes, seleccionadores nacionales (coaches), periodistas (media) y aficionados (fans). (2)
  • 168 capitanes de selecciones votaron a 3 jugadores de entre la lista de 10 elaborada por los expertos. Los clasificaron en primer, segundo y tercer lugar, obteniendo el jugador seleccionado 5, 3 y 1 puntos respectivamente.
  • 171 seleccionadores nacionales votaron del mismo modo que los capitanes.
  • 168 periodistas designados (uno por país) votaron del mismo modo que capitanes y seleccionadores.
  • Aficionados de todo el mundo votaron en la web de FIFA.
  • La votación tuvo lugar entre el 24 de julio y el 10 de agosto de 2018.
  • El resultado final para la designación de los ganadores es una media ponderada en la que los resultados parciales de los votos de capitanes, seleccionadores, periodistas y aficionados pesa cada uno un 25% del total.

Por España votaron Sergio Ramos (capitán), Luis Enrique (seleccionador) y Francesc Aguilar (periodista de Mundo Deportivo).

El resultado global, es el publicado en diferentes medios, con un podio formado por Luka Modric (29.05% de los votos ponderados), Cristiano Ronaldo (19.08%) y Mohamed Salah (11.23%). Dejo debajo una tabla resumen. Esta misma tabla se puede descargar de la web de FIFA [PDF, 260 KB].

Tabla_total

Por otro lado, en la web de FIFA se puede encontrar el detalle de todos los votos emitidos por capitanes, seleccionadores y periodistas, en un documento PDF de 16 páginas [PDF, 517 KB]. Y es a partir de ese documento del que muestro las tablas resumen de debajo.

Tabla resumen con el voto de los capitanes:

Tabla_total_captain

Tabla resumen con el voto de los capitanes, si solo votasen aquellos pertenecientes a las selecciones que disputaron el Mundial de Rusia 2018 (31 capitanes de entre los 168 de la muestra total):

Tabla_WC18_captain

Tabla resumen con el voto de los seleccionadores:

Tabla_total_coach

Tabla resumen con el voto de los seleccionadores, si solo votasen aquellos pertenecientes a las selecciones que disputaron el Mundial de Rusia 2018 (31 seleccionadores de entre los 171 de la muestra total):

Tabla_WC18_coach

Tabla resumen con el voto de los periodistas:

Tabla_media

Tabla resumen con el voto de los aficionados:

Tabla_fans

Esta última tabla con el voto de los aficionados se obtiene a partir del resultado global y tras haber calculado los resultados parciales de capitanes, seleccionadores y prensa, dado que en los resultados de FIFA no aparece publicado el voto de aficionados.

Comparación de la tabla resumen oficial con todos los votos con cómo quedaría la tabla si se excluyese de la ponderación el voto de los aficionados.

Tabla_total_wo_fans

Comparación de la tabla resumen oficial con todos los votos con cómo quedaría la tabla si se excluyese de la ponderación el voto de los aficionados y la prensa, es decir, si contase sólo el voto de los profesionales.

Tabla_total_wo_fans_&_media

Y por último una comparación con cómo quedaría la tabla si contase sólo el voto de los profesionales de aquellas selecciones que participaron en el Mundial de Rusia 2018 (los 31 capitanes y 31 seleccionadores).

Tabla_WC18_wo_fans_&_media

Comentarios finales:

  • En todas las votaciones aparecen destacados siempre en primer lugar Luka Modric y Cristiano Ronaldo con diferencia entre ellos y con el tercero.
  • En el tercero y cuarto lugar aparecen distintos jugadores según se cojan los votos de capitanes, seleccionadores, prensa o capitanes y seleccionadores de las selecciones participantes en el Mundial: Salah & Mbappé, Mbappé & Messi, Salah & Varane, Mbappé & Hazard, Griezmann & Hazard, Mbappé & Griezmann.
  • La excepción se da en el voto de los aficionados, donde en primer lugar destacado aparece Salah, seguido de lejos por Cristiano Ronaldo y Messi y en cuarto lugar Luka Modric.

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(1) El panel de expertos [PDF, 402 KB] estaba formado por: Sami Al Jaber (Saudi Arabia), Emmanuel Amuneke (Nigeria), Cha Bum-Kun (Corea del Sur), Fabio Capello (Italia), Didier Drogba (Costa de Marfil), Kaka (Brasil), Frank Lampard (Inglaterra), Lothar Matthaus (Alemania), Alessandro Nesta (Italia), Carlos Alberto Parreira (Brasil), Ronaldo (Brasil), Andy Roxburgh (Escocia), Wynton Rufer (Nueva Zelanda).

(2) Una vez elaborada la lista todos los votos se circunscriben a ella, es por tanto normal que no haya votos para Neymar, Sergio Ramos, Isco o Cavani, dado que no forman parte de la lista hecha por el panel de expertos.

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June 10, 2016 · 8:00 am

Forecasting France Euro 2016

I have a work colleague who not only is a tremendous negotiator and aircraft seller but also has a great sense of humor and manages in his free time late in the night to set up a contest for office staff to try to guess winners, matches’ scores, top scorers, etc., of major international soccer competitions. The France Euro 2016 which starts this afternoon could not be missed. Nacho managed to set up the contest in time.

In this post I am going to explain how I went about forecasting the results of the UEFA Euro 2016.

“when in doubt, build a model”, Nate Silver.

The readers of this blog may already know how much I do like to build models to produce forecasts, guesstimates, etc. In relation to forecasting this UEFA Euro 2016 there is some background that has shaped my mind in relation to the subject in the recent years, let me give you some hints:

Having shared this background, you may understand that I tried to remove all the beauty of guessing and my football knowledge out of the forecasting process (1).

I rather made use of:

  • ESPN Soccer Power Index (SPI) ranking, introduced by the economist Nate Silver. I used its offensive and defensive scores plus weight for each of the scores based on a tip indicating that in competitive matches the defensive factor tends to be slightly more important (see “A Guide to ESPN’s SPI rankings”) (2).
  • The frequency of different scores in the group phases of the Euro 2012 and the World Cup 2010, the in the round of 16, quarter finals and semi-finals.

Frenquency

  • A few simple rules about how to allocate results given the difference between SPI ratings of the two nations playing each match. (3)
  • The total number of goals during group phases the latest Euro and World Cup. In order to cross check that the total numbers of goals that my forecast yielded was in check with previous competitions.

It may sound very complex. It is not. It requires a bit of reading (which most of it I did years ago), retrieving the latest ratings, giving it a bit of thought to set up the model and then, not even looking at the names of the teams, you go about allocating the scores based on raw figures. Let’s see how my forecast fares this time! (4)

Porra Euro 2016

“Les grandes personnes aiment les chiffres” (5), the Little Prince.

—

(1) In fact I have not watched a single national team football match from any country since the World Cup in Brazil in 2014.

(2) See here the blog post I published yesterday in which I made a more thorough review of the ESPN SPI index.

(3) I set up rules like “if the difference of the combination of indices of the two nations is below this threshold, I take it as a draw, if it is between x and y as victory by 1 goal, if higher…”, etc.

(4) This way of forecasting allowed me to finish 4th out of 47 in 2010, 15th out of 87 in 2014. As it removes biases it allows to be better than the average, though it prevents you of guessing outliers, gut feelings, etc.

(5)”Adults love figures”.

Note: In the blog post from yesterday I mentioned that the latest complete ranking from the ESPN SPI index that I could retrieve dated from October 2015. That is the one I have used, therefore, Germany results as winner. Of the latest ranking, covering the Top 25 nations, only 13 countries of the 24 competing at the Euro 2016 are included. I could have set up an hybrid ranking taking the latest rankings and ratings for the top 13 from June and using the October figures for the lower 11 teams. I decided to go on with a single set of data. If I had done so, the maing changes would have come from the semifinals onwards. France would have appeared as winner instead of Germany. We’ll see if that was a good decision.

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June 9, 2016 · 8:00 am

France Euro 2016: “group of death”?

Tomorrow will start the UEFA Euro 2016. Fans all over Europe start getting excited by it. This year’s competition is played in France, with some matches taking place in Toulouse, one of them Spain – Czech Republic, which some friends and I will be able to watch live!

This post is intended to be a quick one to discuss, as I did for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, which groups are the most difficult ones, the so-called “group of death“. Media all over Europe states that it is group E, with Belgium, Ireland, Italy and Sweden the one which is the toughest. To discover which is effectively such group I’ll focus on a couple of rankings: FIFA’s and ESPN’s Soccer Power Index, as I did in 2014.

Teams Euro 2016

FIFA world ranking.

In its website, FIFA explains the procedure which it uses to compute the ranking, which is based on the following formula:

M x I x T x C = P

M: winning, drawing or losing a match

I: importance of the match

T: strength of opposing team

C: confederation strength weights

P: points for a game

According to that formula, the latest ranking (June 2nd), filtered for European teams, has the following teams at its top:

FIFA ranking

With the information of both the ranking and the points I went to check which of the groups of the Euro 2016 were the strongest, both taking a look at the overall group and looking from the perspective of the “favourite” team (the one with the highest ranking), which was the one facing a toughest group (total points of the other 3 teams composing the group). See the results below:

Group of death - FIFA ranking

As you can see the most difficult groups in terms of total points are:

  • C (Germany, Northern Ireland, Poland, Ukraine) with 3,897.
  • F (Austria, Hungary, Island, Portugal) with 3,895.
  • E (Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Sweden) with 3,869.

Looking at the average ranking, the most difficult groups are:

  • F (Austria, Hungary, Island, Portugal) with 18.
  • C (Germany, Northern Ireland, Poland, Ukraine) with 18,75.
  • D (Croatia, Spain, Czech Republic, Turkey) with 20,25.

And excluding the points of the favorite team in each group, which is the favorite facing the toughest group?

  • Portugal in group F, facing 2,714.
  • Germany in group C, facing 2,587.
  • Spain in group D, facing 2,576.

Then, combining the 3 approaches, to me, it becomes clear that the toughest group is F, with Austria, Hungary, Island and Portugal, by the total amount of points (2nd), ranking of the teams (1st) and in relation to what Portugal will face (1st).

The second most difficult group would be C, with Germany, Northern Ireland, Poland and Ukraine, by the total amount of points (1st), ranking of the teams (2nd) and in relation to what Germany will face (2nd).

You can see that, using FIFA ranking, and despite of conventional “wisdom” (press), group E would be nothing but the 3rd or 4th most difficult group, i.e. an average group out of 6.

ESPN Soccer Power Index (SPI) ranking.

ESPN Soccer Power Index (SPI) ranking was introduced by the economist Nate Silver of worldly fame, who many readers will know from his forecasts on elections in the USA (check his blog FiveThirtyEight).

In a post from 2009, when the SPI was introduced, just before the 2010 World Cup, he explained how the index was computed (“A Guide to ESPN’s SPI rankings”). As he explained, the process had 4 main steps:

  • Calculate competitiveness coefficients for all games in database.
  • Derive match-based ratings for all international and club teams.
  • Derive player-based ratings for all games in which detailed data is available.
  • Combine team and player data into a composite rating based on current rosters; use to predict future results.

The main difference in relation to FIFA ranking algorithm is that it takes player-based ratings for those players who play in clubs in the Big Four leagues (England, Spain, Italy, Germany) and the UEFA Champions’ League. The player-based rating is merged into the national team coefficient. The player-based rating weighs heavily in national teams with many players playing in the main leagues (e.g. England or Spain national teams) and less heavily in other nations which roster is composed of many players not playing in clubs of the 4 main leagues (e.g. Russia).

Other details of the ESPN’s approach are similar to those used by FIFA: e.g. giving weights to results depending on the opponent, measuring the competitiveness of the match, the different confederations, etc.

ESPN provides a daily update of its ranking, however it includes only the top 25 world-wide teams, out of which 15 are European and only 13 represented in the UEFA Euro 2016, that is about half of those 24 competing.

ESPN - daily rating June 08

In order to review which one would be the group of death using the ESPN SPI I took the latest available complete ranking I could find, dating from October 2015, which is half a year away, but reflected the situation at about the end of the qualifying phase for the Euro 2016. See the ranking below:

ESPN SPI Oct 2015

As I did with the FIFA ranking above, with the information of both the ranking and the ESPN SPI ratings I went to check which ones of the groups of the Euro 2016 were the strongest, both taking a look at the overall group and looking from the perspective of the “favourite” team (the one with the highest ranking), which was the one facing a toughest group (total ratings of the other 3 teams composing the group). See the results below:

Group of death - ESPN SPI ranking

As you can see the most difficult groups in terms of total ratings are:

  • D (Croatia, Spain, Czech Republic, Turkey) with 309.
  • B (Slovakia, Wales, England, Russia) with 307.
  • C and E with 303.

Looking at the average ranking, the most difficult groups are:

  • B (Slovakia, Wales, England, Russia) with 24.
  • D (Croatia, Spain, Czech Republic, Turkey) with 24.5.
  • E (Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Sweden) with 28.

And excluding the points of the favorite team in each group, which is the favorite facing the toughest group?

  • England in group B, facing 224.
  • Spain in group D, facing 223.
  • Belgium in group E, facing 219.

Then, combining the 3 approaches, to me, it becomes clear that the toughest group is B, with Slovakia, Wales, England and Russia, by the total amount of points (2nd), ranking of the teams (1st) and in relation to what England will face (1st).

The second most difficult group would be D, with Croatia, Spain, Czech Republic and Turkey, by the total amount of points (1st), ranking of the teams (2nd) and in relation to what Spain will face (2nd).

You can see that, using ESPN SPI ranking (from October), and despite of conventional “wisdom” (press), group E would be nothing but the 3rd most difficult group.

Some readers may be tempted to think that I arrived at this result because I used a ranking from half a year ago, that if we were to take the latest ratings (if fully available) group E would emerge as the toughest one… not so. See the preliminary table using the information available for those 12 teams:

Group of death - ESPN SPI ranking - June 2016

There you can see that with the latest ratings the most competitive group would be either D or C, very much like with FIFA rating (from June as well).

It is interesting to note how by using FIFA or ESPN SPI the weight given to the group F (Portugal) is completely different.

Finally, in both ratings the big absence in the tournament is the Netherlands, arguably about the 10-14th team in the world, the 6th in Europe. A pity for the competition.

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March 11, 2016 · 8:00 am

Santos, Pelé and the Memorial das Conquistas at Vila Belmiro

Santos is a port city about an hour drive from Sao Paulo, crucial for the development of the coffee industry in Brazil and the inflow of slaves from Africa in the XIX century. But Santos is mainly known today because of the Santos football club. The Santos football club is known because it was there where Pelé played for the most of his career. And Pelé…

Pele“My name is Ronald Reagan, I’m the President of the United States of America. But you don’t need to introduce yourself, because everyone knows who Pelé is.” Ronald Reagan (at a visit of Pelé to the White House)

In my third trip to Brazil, I wouldn’t let it pass away the opportunity to rent a car, drive from Sao Paulo to Santos and visit Vila Belmiro, the stadium of Santos FC and the museum “Memorial of the conquests” (Memorial das Conquistas).

Named the “Athlete of the Century” by the International Olympic Committee, Pelé joined Santos when he was 15 years old  (in the museum you can see his first contract as professional) and in his first complete season he finished as top scorer of the league with just 16 years. At age 17 he scored 58 goals in the league; a record that still stands today… With Pelé, Santos went to win:

Today, Santos it is neither the team with more Paulistas championships (Corinthians (27), Palmeiras (22) and Sao Paulo (21) are ahead in that ranking), it shares the lead in Brasileiraos with Palmeiras (both with 8), it is not the club with more Libertadores cups (8 teams are ahead in that ranking, led by the Argentinean Independiente (8), Boca Juniors (6), Peñarol (5)… including Brazil’s Sao Paulo with 3) nor is the American club with the most International Cup (Peñarol, Boca Juniors and Nacional de Montevideo won 3). And despite of all that, the club Santos was declared by FIFA as the best club of the XX century in the Americas (4). Because it was in Santos where Pelé played, and with him the team reached the summit in the 1960s when it lived a dream decade, the years of Os Santásticos who achieved 25 titles between 1959 and 1974. Santos, according to FIFA was the first team to reach the 10,000 goals scored and has plenty of other goal records (5). It was in that Santos that Pelé was the first attacker reaching the mark of 1,000 goals scored (6).

Those days are long gone. Nowadays the club, Santos, wanders around the 100th position of the World Best clubs (7), struggles in the Brasileirao (ending between 7th-9th in last 3 seasons) and most great players are continuously sold (8). However, Vila Belmiro still captures very well the essence of the good old times.

field

Vila Belmiro, or rather the Urbano Caldeira stadium, was built in 1916, close to the port of Santos. It is a small stadium with capacity for barely 17.000 spectators. Thus, for some important matches Santos plays in the bigger stadiums of Sao Paulo (mainly at Pacaembu (9)). Nevertheless, it’s a cozy stadium, where you have a good view of any spot of the field from anywhere. I liked especially the boxes at ground level named after the great players of the history of the club (10).

The tour of the stadium included a visit to the locker rooms (each locker in the local team room named after the club’s legends, with a special spot for Pelé), the tunnel to the field (well separated from the visitor’s tunnel, each at a different corner of the stadium), the field, the benches.

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An anecdote for Spanish football fans: in the corridors at field’s level a poster with the following sentence from the Spanish football commentator, Julio Maldonado, can be seen:

“Silencio… juega el Santos”, Julio Maldonado, “Maldini” (Silence… Santos’ is playing)

Silencio

I definitely recommend the visit to the museum and the stadium. You will be submerged into the history of football for a couple of hours (if you chose to read everything) for just 13 R$ (about 3 euros).

FIFA

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(1) Arguably the most important of Brazilian states’ tournaments.

(2) Competition founded in 1959.

(3) Created in 1960, is the South American equivalent to the then Europe Cup and nowadays’ European Champion’s League.

(4) The award was based on a vote by the subscribers of the bi-monthly FIFA World Magazine (see here). For the record, with over a 42% of the vote, Real Madrid was elected as best club of the century.

(5) The goal 10,000th was scored in 1998 (the club was founded in 1912). In the museum there is a digital counter updated with each goal scored. At the time of my visit it was above the 12,200 mark. For comparison, Real Madrid had scored about 8,800 goals in official competitions only up to January 2015.

(6) Pelé holds the Guinness World Record for being the player with most goals scored, 1,279.

(7) See here the 2015 IFFHS club world ranking.

(8) Unlike Pelé, who in 1961 was declared as a national treasure in order to prevent him from being transferred to richer European clubs.

(9) At the municipal stadium of Pacaembu there is another museum, the Museo do Futebol, which I also visited and about which I may write at a later point.

(10) I only referred to Pelé in this post but in Santos played at some point in time as well: Gilmar, Coutinho, Clodoaldo, Carlos Alberto (the latter two were part of Brazil’s 1970 World Cup final roster), and most recently Robinho, Ganso and Neymar.

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June 12, 2014 · 8:00 am

Forecasting 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil

I have a work colleague who not only is a tremendous negotiator and contracts’ drafter but also has a great sense of humor and manages in his free time late in the night to set up a contest for office staff to try to guess winners, matches’ scores, top scorers, etc., of major international soccer competitions. The 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, which will start tomorrow, could not be missed. Nacho managed to set up the contest in time.

To set up the background as to how I have approached the game of forecasting this World Cup:

  • I had written a review of the book “Soccernomics“, which among other things advocates the use of data in order to make decisions in relation to football transfer market, forecasting, etc. This book relies somewhat heavily in “Moneyball” another book which I read some months ago with a similar scope but with baseball as the theme sport.
  • When the draw of the World Cup took place last December, I wrote a couple of blog posts discussing what was the so-called “group of death” basing the analysis on FIFA and ESPN rankings.
  • During the last year, I read a couple of books which approach how we make decisions and how to remove different kind of biases from the thought processes of making them: “Thinking Fast and Slow” (by the 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics Daniel Kahneman) and “Seeking Wisdom“.
  • Finally, last year I followed the open course “A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior” by Dan Ariely (though I missed the last exam due to my honeymoon and could not get credit for it).

Having shared this background, you may understand that I tried to remove all the beauty of guessing and my football “knowledge” to the forecasting process. I rather made use of  ESPN Soccer Power Index (SPI) ranking, introduced by the economist Nate Silver. I used its offensive and defensive scores plus the tip indicating that in competitive matches the defensive factor tends to be slightly more important (see “A Guide to ESPN’s SPI rankings”).

Once I plugged in the numbers from the index and used the referred tip on the defensive side, I built a simple model to guess each of the World Cup matches. Once you take this approach you will find that the model gives you plenty of results such as Nigeria 1.32 – 1.53 Bosnia… What to do with it? When the result was very tight I resolved it as a draw, otherwise a victory for the team with the highest score.

In very few instances I forecast that a team would score 3 or more goals in a match. I bore in mind that in the 2010 World Cup 80% of the matches ended up with scores of 1-0 (26% of the matches), 2-1 (15%), 0-0, 1-1 or 2-0 (each 13%).  That a team scores more than 3 goals in a match will certainly happen in some games, but I did not bother to guess in which ones, the odds are against.

The prize pot of the game organized by this colleague is not particularly big (few hundreds euros). The main point of the game is enjoying the chit-chat with work colleagues. My second main point is putting this rational approach to work and see how it fares.

Finally, what did I forecast?

A World Cup won by Brazil against Argentina in the final. With Spain beating Germany for the third place (in the penalties). For my English readers: England defeated by Colombia in the 1/8 of final. For the ones from USA, it doesn’t make the cut from the group phase. We will see along this month how well do I fare.

2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil forecast.

2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil forecast.

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December 8, 2013 · 3:00 pm

Brazil 2014 FIFA World Cup: “group of death”? (using ESPN ranking)

In a previous blog post I used FIFA world rankings to see which was the “group of death” of the following Brazil 2014 World Cup finals.

I received some comments questioning FIFA ranking based on the position of some specific countries: Switzerland, Portugal, Argentina, Colombia, Chile… I am sure that when one looks at how each country is playing he will believe that this or that country plays much better than the other placed higher in the ranking. But, the goodness of the ranking is that it removes perceptions from the process and simply establishes a set of rules by which all teams are going to be measured. It then goes on computing teams’ results along the year and the positions in the ranking are established, for good and bad.

In one of the comments I received I got the suggestion to rather use ESPN Soccer Power Index (SPI) ranking. I was even more attracted to that hint as the ESPN SPI index was introduced by the economist Nate Silver of worldly fame, who many readers will know from his forecasts on recent elections in the USA (check his blog FiveThirtyEight).

In a post from 2009, when the SPI was introduced, just before the 2010 World Cup, he explained how the index was computed (“A Guide to ESPN’s SPI rankings”). As he explained, the process had 4 main steps:

  • Calculate competitiveness coefficients for all games in database
  • Derive match-based ratings for all international and club teams
  • Derive player-based ratings for all games in which detailed data is available
  • Combine team and player data into a composite rating based on current rosters; use to predict future results.
ESPN SPI ranking at the end of Nov 2013.

ESPN SPI ranking at the end of Nov 2013.

The main difference in relation to FIFA ranking algorithm is that it takes player-based ratings for those players who play in clubs in the Big Four leagues (England, Spain, Italy, Germany) and the UEFA Champions’ League. The player-based rating is merged into the national team coefficient. The player-based rating weighs heavily in national teams with many players playing in the main leagues (e.g. England or Spain national teams) and less heavily in other nations which roster is composed of many players not playing in clubs of the 4 main leagues (e.g. Russia).

Other details of the ESPN’s approach are similar to those used by FIFA: e.g. giving weights to results depending on the opponent, measuring the competitiveness of the match, the different confederations, etc.

You can see the top ranked countries at the picture above.

Without entering on whether this or that country is far better placed in one or the other ranking based on perceptions, one simple yardstick to measure them is to see how many of their 32 top countries are not among the 32 countries qualified for the World Cup:

  • FIFA ranking: 7 teams among the top 32 are not in the World Cup: Ukraine (18), Denmark (25), Sweden (27), Czech Republic (28), Slovenia (29), Serbia (30) and Romania (32). All coming from Europe, and not qualified for the World Cup due to the limited amount of places for UEFA countries (they all placed 2nd or 3rd in their groups).
  • ESPN SPI ranking: 6 teams among the top 32 are not in the World Cup: Paraguay (19), Serbia (20), Ukraine (21), Peru (27), Sweden (29) and Czech Republic (30). 4 countries from Europe and 2 from South America, out for the same reason. Here however, Paraguay is still placed 19th despite of being the last country of the CONMEBOL qualifying.

With the information from the ESPN SPI ranking I produced the same table:

Brazil 2014 groups heat map based on ESPN SPI ranking.

Brazil 2014 groups heat map based on ESPN SPI ranking.

And then, the same analysis as in my previous post follows.

The most difficult groups in terms of total ratings are:

  1. B (Spain, Netherlands, Chile, Australia) with 327.
  2. D (Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy) with 323.
  3. G (Germany, Portugal, Ghana, USA) with 322.

Looking at the average ranking, the most difficult groups are:

  1. D (Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy) with 14.
  2. G (Germany, Portugal, Ghana, USA) with 15,25.
  3. B (Spain, Netherlands, Chile, Australia) with 17,5.

And excluding the rating of the favorite team (pot 1) in each group, which is the favorite facing the toughest group?

  1. Uruguay in group D, facing 239.
  2. Spain in group B, facing 238.
  3. Germany in group G, facing 234.

Then, combining the 3 approaches, the toughest group is between B (in terms of combined ratings) or D (in terms of average rating and from the favourite point of view).

Using the ESPN ranking group G would definitely would not be the toughest one, but the 3rd toughest.

I would understand ESPN journalists calling group B or D the toughest one. What strikes me is why FIFA website content editors call group B the “group of death” if by their ranking that group would be the group G!

It will be interesting to see how one ranking fares against the other at the time of predicting the actual development of the Brazil 2014 World Cup.

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December 6, 2013 · 10:30 pm

Brazil 2014 FIFA World Cup: “group of death”?

The draw of the groups for the Final phase of the football World cup to take place in Brazil from June 2014 has taken place today. As it always does, it drew much attention and right afterwards lots of speculation, especially to identify which one will be the so-called “group of death”.

I read in the Spanish sports press that Group B, where Spain is placed, is called as “lethal”. I thought to myself: “playing the victims before the competition”. Then I read in the FIFA website:

Spain, the Netherlands, Chile and Australia will make up the proverbial ‘group of death’ at the 20th FIFA World Cup™, while Uruguay, Italy, England and Costa Rica will comprise another intriguing pool.

Well, no.

Take a look at the groups in the picture. What would be your guess as to the most difficult or the easiest group?

Brazil 2014 groups

Brazil 2014 World Cup groups.

FIFA ranking end Nov 2013

FIFA ranking end Nov 2013

I then decided to take a quantitative approach using precisely FIFA world rankings, a classification made up with the points each country is getting for their results every month.

FIFA uses a formula to compute those points:

M x I x T x C = P

M: winning, drawing or losing a match

I: importance of the match

T: strength of opposing team

C: confederation strength weights

P: points for a game

Take a look in the picture in the right, to see the FIFA rankings at the end of November, just before the draw has taken place. You will see Spain in the top spot with 1,507 points, well ahead of Germany, Argentina, etc. Most of the countries in the top 23 that you can see in the picture are represented in the World Cup with the exception of Ukraine. See the whole ranking here.

With this information I built the following table, attaching to each country in the different groups the current ranking and points. Then, I calculated the average ranking of each group and the total amount of points. I then, also summed up the amount of points per group excluding the favourite in each group, showing in that way which has been the most difficult or the easiest group for the favourite countries (those placed in the pot 1 of the draw). Finally, I coloured results in a heat map: more red, more difficult. Which is then the “group of death”?

FIFA 2014 groups heat map.

FIFA 2014 groups heat map.

As you can see the most difficult groups in terms of total points are:

  1. G (Germany, Portugal, Ghana, USA) with 4,358.
  2. B (Spain, Netherlands, Chile, Australia) with 4,191.
  3. D (Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy) with 4,031.

Looking at the average ranking, the most difficult groups are:

  1. G (Germany, Portugal, Ghana, USA) with 11,25.
  2. D (Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy) with 14,25.
  3. C (Colombia, Greece, Côte d’Ivoire, Japan) with 20,25.

And excluding the points of the favorite team (pot 1) in each group, which is the favorite facing the toughest group?

  1. Germany in group G, facing 3,040.
  2. Uruguay in group D, facing 2,899.
  3. Spain in group B, facing 2,684.

Then, combining the 3 approaches, to me it becomes clear that the toughest group is G, with Germany, Portugal, Ghana and USA, by the total amount of points, ranking of the teams and in relation to what Germany will face.

Then, I would say that the second most difficult group is D, both looking at ranking and from the point of view of Uruguay. The third being group B (though between D and B, depends on the approach).

On the other hand, for the Netherlands, Chile and Australia (the worst team of the competition) it is clear that group B is the most difficult, as from their point of view their group has the most points excluding themselves (mainly thanks to the 1,507 of Spain).

Finally, after having done the analysis and seeing the heading of conversations on groups’ difficulty are taking I realize how few people have read about “Soccernomics” or “Moneyball“… just like with stock markets, at least this is just football.

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