FIFA rankings: September

For a time, the only thing I could be bothered to care about on this blog (before I had readers) was football, as in soccer, rankings. I realized by then that the FIFA rankings were deficient, and obsessed (as much as posting a few times per month can be considered an obsession) over alternatives. I even went so far as to think about, but never carry out, a plan to take up a hobby of reading statistics journals in order to develop the expertise necessary to formulate my own rankings system.

Needless to say, I was underemployed at the time.

I've since developed a healthier perspective regarding the FIFA rankings. They're messed up, surely (Norway is 14th in the current edition), but they do have an undeniable effect. For Canada, which will be seeded for World Cup qualifying based on their rank within CONCACAF, it is vital to remain in the top 8 regionally between now and the draw.

So Canada's jump back into the double digits, from 101 to 88, in the latest September rankings, is good news. The friendly win over Honduras helped, but it has just as much to do with the shifting weights of older results.

Here's how things stand in CONCACAF:

Ranking	Zonal Ranking	Team	Pts Sep 10	+/- Ranking Aug 10		+/- Pts Aug 10
18	1	USA	899	0		-32
28	2	Mexico	795	-3		-58
52	3	Honduras	565	-6		-62
53	4	Costa Rica	561	0		-1
70	5	Panama	487	27		173
76	6	Jamaica	425	6		53
88	7	Canada	360	13		73
97	8	Trinidad and Tobago	327	-21		-91
110	9	El Salvador	253	-24		-107
113	10	Cuba	218	1		3
115	11	Guatemala	214	4		13
120	12	Guyana	182	2		-8

(There are 23 more countries but I doubt you'll mind me cutting it off here).

For what it's worth, here's where Canada stands in some of the other established alternative ranking systems:

ELO: 62nd (7th in CONCACAF)
Ziaian: 68th (7th)
AQB: 72nd (7th)

In each instance, the same 6 teams are ranked in front of Canada. Maybe FIFA's list isn't so bad after all.