What were they thinking?

Is it just me or is this the lamest celebration ever?
If I had just won the World Cup, I don't think my first instinct would be to play ring-around-the-rosy with my teammates.

Evolving Ranking #2: Keeping it simple, stupid

Last time, in this quest to create the perfect system of ranking soccer teams, I ordered CONCACAF's member nations on the basis of the number of points accrued in a two year period, based on 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. I'm keeping it simple for now.

In order not to reward teams, like some Caribbean nations, who play an inordinate number of games against minnows, I've divided the total points gained by the number of games played, which produces the following:

Rk	Country	Pts/Gm
1	Guyana	2.64
2	USA	2.32
3	Honduras	2.11
4	Haiti	1.82
5	Mexico	1.69
6	Costa Rica	1.65
7	Barbados	1.62
8	Canada	1.58
9	Cuba	1.50
10	Jamaica	1.50
11	St. Vincent/Grenadines	1.43
12	Suriname	1.40
13	Trinidad and Tobago	1.40
14	St. Kitts and Nevis	1.33
15	Antigua and Barbuda	1.27
16	Bermuda	1.25
17	Panama	1.09
18	Bahamas	1.00
19	Dominican Republic	1.00
20	Turks and Caicos Islands	1.00
21	Guatemala	0.92
22	El Salvador	0.79
23	Nicaragua	0.75
24	Grenada	0.50
25	Netherlands Antilles	0.33
26	Anguilla	0.00
27	Belize	0.00
28	Cayman Islands	0.00
29	Dominica	0.00
30	St. Lucia	0.00
31	US Virgin Islands	0.00
32	Aruba	n/a
33	British Virgin Islands	n/a
34	Montserrat	n/a
35	Puerto Rico	n/a

While Mexico's position comes closer to there actual strength relative to the rest of CONCACAF, Guyana (!) tops the rankings due to strong results in all matches except those that would have qualified them for the regional championship, the Gold Cup.

If any problems are solved by taking this step after the first one, just as many are created. So, back to the drawing board, I suppose.

See also:
Evolving Ranking #1: The Straight Dope

FIFA U-20: Travelogue

The FIFA U-20 World Cup will wrap up this Sunday, with the 3rd place and final matches to be played in Toronto. Last night's ugly incident involving, among others, the German referee, Argentinian and Chilean players, and the police, has marred the tournament somewhat, but it has been a success, setting an attendance record.

Hosting a nationwide event in Canada is different from most other countries of the world. In the last edition of this tournament, which took place across 6 cities in Holland, the largest distance between two cities (according to Google Maps) was the 308 km between Emmen and Kerkrade. By contrast, only Ottawa-Montreal and Burnaby-Vancouver were shorter commutes in the Canadian tournament, while the haul between Victoria and Montreal was near 5000 km.

Some countries had an arduous travel schedule. Austria, for instance had an itinerary of Edmonton - Toronto - Edmonton - Toronto - Edmonton - Toronto, a whopping 17330 km, with 5 cross-continent flights around 7 games.

Disregarding, for the time being, travel from the home country to Canada for the tournament, here is a table of travels for the participating nations.

Country	Gms	Itinerary	Km
Austria	7	Edmonton -> Toronto -> Edmonton -> Toronto -> Edmonton -> Toronto	17330
Chile	7	Toronto -> Edmonton -> Toronto -> Edmonton -> Montreal -> Toronto	14939
Czech Republic	7	Ottawa -> Montreal -> Victoria -> Edmonton -> Toronto	9683
Mexico	5	Toronto -> Edmonton -> Montreal -> Ottawa	7631
Brazil	4	Montreal -> Ottawa -> Burnaby	5002
Nigeria	5	Victoria -> Ottawa -> Montreal	4965
Zambia	4	Burnaby -> Victoria -> Ottawa	4885
Gambia	4	Toronto -> Montreal -> Edmonton	4541
Portugal	4	Toronto -> Montreal -> Edmonton	4541
Uruguay	4	Burnaby -> Victoria -> Toronto	4447
Congo	4	Edmonton -> Montreal	3996
Canada	3	Toronto -> Edmonton	3466
New Zealand	3	Toronto -> Edmonton	3466
Argentina	7	Ottawa -> Toronto -> Ottawa -> Toronto	1356
Spain	5	Burnaby -> Edmonton	1147
USA	5	Montreal -> Ottawa -> Toronto	651
Poland	4	Montreal -> Toronto	545
Panama	3	Ottawa -> Montreal	199
Costa Rica	3	Victoria -> Burnaby	118
Scotland	3	Victoria -> Burnaby	118
Japan	4	Victoria	0
Jordan	3	Burnaby	0
Korea DPR	3	Ottawa	0
Korea Republic	3	Montreal	0

It should come as no surprise that Austria, Chile and Czech Republic who, along with Argentina, all played 7 matches, should make up the top 3. However, Argentina managed to record any significant travel, putting on under 1400 km. Spain played 5 matches, but only had to travel once, and USA made the final 8 only traveling 651 km.

Looking back to 2005, the theoretical maximum travel itinerary would have been only 1848 km (the actual number is probably much lower), which would have placed only halfway up this list.

In the end, it seems rather uneven, but Austria and Chile, who had the most difficult travel itineraries, still managed to make the final 4 so it might not have been so significant a factor. I suppose these are just numbers, a testament to the vast country that hosted the tournament.

Evolving Ranking #1: The Straight Dope

My obsession at one point with this blog was discussing the FIFA rankings for men's world cup teams and their many shortcomings. The latest edition of the rankings were released today. Here are how the CONCACAF teams stack up:

10	1	Mexico	1142	16		276
14	2	USA	1036	2		58
50	3	Costa Rica	567	-4		-74
52	4	Canada	562	4		23
57	5	Panama	518	-5		-77
63	6	Honduras	485	-8		-67
65	7	Trinidad and Tobago	461	8		28
75	8	Guatemala	425	6		32
90	9	Cuba	360	-12		-56
92	10	Haiti	347	3		9
93	11	Jamaica	343	-25		-112
100	12	Guyana	328	-2		0
103	13	St. Vincent and the Grenadines	316	3		12
118	14	Barbados	245	-2		1
125	15	Suriname	224	-5		-7
130	16	Bermuda	194	-3		-1
131	17	Antigua and Barbuda	192	-2		0
134	18	El Salvador	176	-4		-14
140	19	Dominican Republic	149	0		0
142	20	St. Kitts and Nevis	146	-4		-6
148	21	Bahamas	111	0		0
153	22	Nicaragua	96	-2		-7
156	23	Grenada	91	-1		-4
157	24	St. Lucia	87	3		9
166	25	Turks and Caicos Islands	64	0		0
174	26	Netherlands Antilles	41	-1		-2
179	27	British Virgin Islands	33	-2		0
184	28	Dominica	21	-5		-7
185	29	Cayman Islands	20	-1		0
194	30	Puerto Rico	10	-1		0
196	31	Anguilla	4	0		0
199	32	Belize	0	0		0
199	33	US Virgin Islands	0	0		0
199	34	Montserrat	0	0		0
199	35	Aruba	0	0		0

This ordering of teams should form a good reference point as I attempt to find out what makes a ranking tick.

Here's how it will work:
Using a step-by-step process, I'll be using data from matches between CONCACAF sides only, from the period between 1 July 2005 and 1 July 2007. Focussing on a two-year window (FIFA uses a 4-year window) is mostly to cut back on the amount of data I have to deal with. Each successive post will impose, hopefully, a greater degree of accuracy to an ordering of CONCACAF teams.

Step 1: The Straight Dope
The easiest way to rank teams is the way leagues all around the world do it, by assigning points to each result: 3 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. Using this incredibly simple method, we come up with the following:

Rk	Country	Points
1	USA	51
2	Haiti	40
3	Honduras	38
4	Guyana	37
5	Costa Rica	28
6	Trinidad and Tobago	28
7	Panama	25
8	Cuba	24
9	Guatemala	22
10	Mexico	22
11	Barbados	21
12	St. Vincent/Grenadines	20
13	Canada	19
14	Jamaica	18
15	Antigua and Barbuda	14
16	El Salvador	11
17	Bermuda	10
18	Suriname	7
19	Bahamas	6
20	Dominican Republic	6
21	St. Kitts and Nevis	4
22	Grenada	3
23	Nicaragua	3
24	Turks and Caicos Islands	3
25	Netherlands Antilles	1
26	Anguilla	0
27	Aruba	0
28	Belize	0
29	British Virgin Islands	0
30	Cayman Islands	0
31	Dominica	0
32	Montserrat	0
33	Puerto Rico	0
34	St. Lucia	0
35	US Virgin Islands	0

Despite the simplicity of this method, the discrepancies in the ordinal rank of teams from their positions on the FIFA table aren't great: the largest are Mexico and Canada, which both rank 9 slots lower by this method, and Haiti and Guyana, which are 8 spots higher than in the FIFA rankings.

Obvious drawbacks of this system:

• A simple points system rewards teams playing a greater quantity of matches. Possible solution: Divide by number of matches to obtain a points-per-game (PPG) statistic.
• Does not account for quality of wins, that is, wins over a stronger opponent.
• Does not account for strength of wins, that is, a 1-0 win receives the same score as a 7-0 blowout.

Stay tuned to see which direction I go next with this Evolving Ranking (EvoRank).

Feel free to leave a comment to tell me what steps you think should be taken.