Ranking Tables explained.

Type of Ranking Tables.

Basically two types of Ranking Tables are presented:

• World Football Ranking Tables over a fixed period of 12 years.
• All-time Ranking Tables for the FIFA World Cup^TM and for each of the continental Championships.

From all World Football Ranking Tables 12-years Tables can be derived for each of the separate continents.

Transformation of Rating Scores.

Raw Rating Scores can have values like +1,007781 or -0,000393 etc. Like for many other Rating Systems, the absolute value of a team's Rating Score is rather arbitrary: the only thing that really matters is the Ranking Order.

For the readability of the Ranking Tables and for the sake of comparability I prefer a linear transformation of such odd scores into values within a well defined range. Note that this linear transformation procedure does not change the order in which teams are ranked based on the originally computed Rating Scores.

For all 12-years World Football Ranking Tables and for the so-called All-time Ranking Tables presented here the original raw Rating Scores are linear transformed:

• The team with the highest Rating Score is awarded 100 points
• The team with the lowest Rating Score is awarded 1 point
• All other teams are awarded a number of points between 1 and 100 depending on their originally calculated Rating Score

Presentation of former countries in the Ranking Tables.

Former countries like East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Soviet Union etc. are skipped from the presentation in any Ranking Table as soon as 6 years are passed since they played their last game. For example: East Germany played it's last match in 1989: the name of East Germany therefore appears in the Ranking Tables for the period 1983-1994 (and earlier periods) but is skipped from the Ranking Table for 1984-1995 (and later periods). In the so-called All-time Ranking Tables covering 1995 or later years the name of East Germany is skipped as well. The results of East Germany however are counted for in order to correctly calculate the coefficients for all other countries.

For a more detailed explanation and for a complete listing of former countries please view: Selection of Data.

Minimum number of matches per Country per Ranking Table.

In order to avoid unrealistic and unvalid Rating Scores, which can occurr if teams have played only a small number of matches, only those teams are included in the computation of Rating Scores that have played at least a minimum number of matches against other teams that are included in the computation of the Rating Scores.
For the so-called All-time Ranking Tables this minimum is set to 10 matches.
For the 12-years World Football Ranking Tables this minimum is set to 7 matches.

Teams that do not meet the criterion for the minimum number of matches are not awarded any Rating Score but are presented at the bottom of the Ranking Table.
In addition to or in absence of Rating Scores the total number of Points obtained is also presented in all Ranking Tables.
Note that for total number of Points obtained always three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss.

NOTE:
The criteria of 10 matches, or 7 matches are subjective choices based on my practical experience with Ranking Tables. It could have been 5 matches or 20 matches. On the website of The World Football Elo Rating System the following statement can be found: "Ratings tend to converge on a team's true strength relative to its competitors after about 30 matches. Ratings for teams with fewer than 30 matches should be considered provisional."