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The World Football Elo Ratings is a ranking system for men's national association football teams that is published by the website eloratings.net. It is based on the Elo rating system but includes modifications to take various football-specific variables into account, like the margin of victory, importance of a match, and home field advantage. Other implementations of the Elo rating system are possible and there is no single nor any official Elo ranking for football teams. The FIFA World Rankings, not based on the Elo method, is the official national teams rating system used by the international governing body of football and is therefore more prevalent.
The ratings consider all official international matches for which results are available. 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 are considered provisional.
The FIFA Women's World Rankings system uses a modified version of the Elo formula whereas the FIFA men's ranking system uses a non-Elo formula. A 2009 comparative study of eight methods found that the implementation of the Elo rating system described below had the highest predictive capability for football matches, while the men's FIFA ranking method performed poorly.
Top 100
The following table shows the top 100 teams in the World Football Elo Ratings as they were on 28 June 2018 (23:00 FET), using data from the World Football Elo Ratings web site.
Each national team's FIFA World Ranking is shown as per the latest release on 7 June 2018.
- Northern Cyprus are not a member of FIFA and are not included in the FIFA Rankings. Also, they have played only 17 matches against other Elo-ranked teams, so their Elo rating is provisional.
- Martinique are also not members of FIFA, so are not included in the FIFA Rankings.
- Kuwait is ranked much lower in the FIFA Ranking because they were inactive from October 2015 to December 2017 due to their suspension from FIFA. While this caused their FIFA Ranking to fall dramatically, their Elo rating remained the same. The same applies to Guatemala but to a lesser extent.
List of number one teams
The following is the list of nations who have achieved the number one position in the World Football Elo Ratings since 1872:
Ranking by days as leader
| Nation |
Days |
First Date as Leader |
Last Date as Leader
|
 England |
10,605 |
30 November 1872 |
11 June 1988
|
 Argentina |
9,044 |
29 July 1908 |
9 November 2016
|
 Brazil |
10,893 |
12 June 1958 |
Current
|
 Scotland |
6,059 |
4 March 1876 |
19 Oct 1926
|
 Germany |
4,631 |
25 July 1966 |
9 November 2017
|
 Spain |
2,771 |
28 August 1920 |
11 October 2013
|
 Italy |
2,694 |
7 June 1934 |
15 August 2006
|
 Hungary |
1,964 |
20 September 1952 |
12 March 1960
|
 France |
1,951 |
12 September 1984 |
10 July 2007
|
 Uruguay |
1,775 |
29 August 1920 |
15 June 1929
|
 Soviet Union |
1,414 |
21 March 1963 |
24 June 1988
|
 Netherlands |
1,042 |
1 June 1978 |
3 July 2014
|
 Denmark |
676 |
5 June 1914 |
7 Oct 1916
|
 Austria |
11 |
27 May 1934 |
6 June 1934
|
 Czech Republic |
8 |
27 June 2004 |
7 June 2005
|
- ^ Number one position reached at / after first match
- Days spent as co-leaders are counted as a ½ day
- Combined record of the Germany (1908-1950 & 1990-present) and West Germany (1950-1990) national football teams.
- So far, only the Soviet Union national football team (1924-1992) has reached the #1 position, but any future efforts by the Russia national football team (1992-present) will be included.
Elo all-time records
All-time highest ratings
The following is a list of national football teams ranked by their highest Elo score ever reached. The team in each confederation that has achieved the highest rank is shown in color.
All-time highest ranking
The following is a list of national football teams ranked by their highest Elo ranking ever reached.
| Rank |
Nation |
Peak rank
(first, last year) |
Highest
rating
|
| 1 |
Hungary |
1st (1952, 1960) |
2230
|
| 2 |
Germany |
1st (1966, 2017) |
2223
|
| 3 |
England |
1st (1872, 1988) |
2216
|
| 4 |
Brazil |
1st (1958, 2018) |
2194
|
| 5 |
Spain |
1st (1920, 2013) |
2165
|
| 6 |
Argentina |
1st (1929, 2016) |
2159
|
| 7 |
Netherlands |
1st (1978, 2014) |
2154
|
| 8 |
France |
1st (1984, 2007) |
2137
|
| 9 |
Italy |
1st (1934, 2006) |
2132
|
| 10 |
Uruguay |
1st (1920, 1929) |
2106
|
| 11 |
Scotland |
1st (1876, 1926) |
2104
|
| 12 |
 Russia |
1st (1963, 1988) |
2088
|
| 13 |
Denmark |
1st (1914, 1916) |
2077
|
| 14 |
Austria |
1st (1934) |
2067
|
| 15 |
Czech Republic |
1st (2004, 2005) |
2038
|
| 16 |
 Poland |
2nd (1974, 1975) |
2083
|
| 17 |
 Chile |
2nd (2016) |
2041
|
| 18 |
 Portugal |
2nd (2006) |
2022
|
| 19 |
 Sweden |
2nd (1950) |
2012
|
| 20 |
 Colombia |
3rd (2016) |
2035
|
|
|
|
- The biggest point gap
The biggest point gap between 1st and 2nd national team was between 14 march and 21 March 1885, when Scotland (at 2094) led by 205 points over 2nd ranked England (at 1889).
Average ratings
Time averaged Elo or Elo-like scores are routinely used to compare chess player strengths. The following is a list of the national teams with the highest average Elo score from 1 January 1970 to 1 January 2018. Before this time intercontinental play was fairly limited and many nations in Africa, North America, and Asia had played too few games yet to create a representative Elo score.
Top-50 highest-rated
|
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
|
Highest average ratings since 1970
Averages by decade
The table below shows the teams with the best average Elo score per decade (Jan 1 XXX0 - Dec 31 XXX9).
|
Highest rated matches
A list of the 25 matches between teams with the highest combined Elo ratings (the nations' points before the matches are given).
Biggest upsets
This is a list of matches with the biggest point exchange. Since the importance of the match, the goal differential and the perceived home team advantage are factored in the exchange, these are not necessarily the most surprising wins as expressed by the difference in Elo rating.
The nations' points before the matches are given.
*The initial ratings may be partially responsible for the high point exchange. The national teams of China, Egypt, Russia, and South Korea had played only 18, 3, 2, and 18 international matches before their respective upsets. China had only yet played against East Asian teams.
Elo Ratings before each World Championship
Eventual achievement of highlighted teams:
| Champions
|
| Runners-up
|
| Third place
|
| Fourth place
|
| Not qualified / not entered
(Top 10 and continental champion)
|
| Disqualified (Top 10 only)
/ withdrew (being qualified)
|
|
|
|
|
|
History
The Elo system, developed by Hungarian-American mathematician Dr. Árpád Élő, is used by FIDE, the international chess federation, to rate chess players, and by the European Go Federation, to rate Go players. In 1997 Bob Runyan adapted the Elo rating system to international football and posted the results on the Internet. He was also the first maintainer of the World Football Elo Ratings web site, now maintained by Kirill Bulygin.
Overview
The Elo system was adapted for football by adding a weighting for the kind of match, an adjustment for the home team advantage, and an adjustment for goal difference in the match result.
The factors taken into consideration when calculating a team's new rating are:
- The team's old rating
- The considered weight of the tournament
- The goal difference of the match
- The result of the match
- The expected result of the match
The different weights of competitions in descending order are:
These ratings take into account all international "A" matches for which results could 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.
Basic calculation principles
The basic principle behind the Elo ratings is only in its simplest form similar to that of a league; unlike the FIFA rankings, who effectively run their table as a normal league table but with weightings to take into account the other factors, the Elo system has its one formula which takes into account the factors mentioned above. There is no first step as in the FIFA system where a team immediately receives points for the result, there is just one calculation in the Elo system.
The ratings are based on the following formulae:
or
Where;
|
|
 |
= The new team rating
|
 |
= The old team rating
|
 |
= Weight index regarding the tournament of the match
|
 |
= A number from the index of goal differences
|
 |
= The result of the match
|
 |
= The expected result
|
 |
= Points Change
|
The number of Points Change is rounded to the nearest integer before updating the team rating.
Status of match
The status of the match is incorporated by the use of a weight constant. The constant reflects the importance of a match, which, in turn, is determined entirely by which tournament the match is in; the weight constant for each major tournament is given in the table below:
| Tournament or Match type |
Index (K)
|
| World Cup, Olympic Games (1908-1980) |
60
|
| Continental Championship and Intercontinental Tournaments |
50
|
| World Cup and Continental qualifiers and major tournaments |
40
|
| All other tournaments |
30
|
| Friendly matches |
20
|
Number of goals
The number of goals is taken into account by use of a goal difference index.
If the game is a draw or is won by one goal
If the game is won by two goals
If the game is won by three or more goals
- Where N is the goal difference
Table of examples:
| Goal Difference |
Coefficient of K (G)
|
| 0 |
1
|
| +1 |
1
|
| +2 |
1.5
|
| +3 |
1.75
|
| +4 |
1.875
|
| +5 |
2
|
| +6 |
2.125
|
| +7 |
2.25
|
| +8 |
2.375
|
| +9 |
2.5
|
| +10 |
2.625
|
Result of match
W is the result of the game (1 for a win, 0.5 for a draw, and 0 for a loss). This also holds when a game is won or lost on extra time. If the match is decided on penalties, however, the result of the game is considered a draw (W = 0.5).
Expected result of match
We is the expected result (win expectancy with a draw counting as 0.5) from the following formula:
where dr equals the difference in ratings (add 100 points for the home team). So dr of 0 gives 0.5, of 120 gives 0.666 to the higher-ranked team and 0.334 to the lower, and of 800 gives 0.99 to the higher-ranked team and 0.01 to the lower.
Examples
The same examples have been used on the FIFA World Rankings for a fair comparison. Some actual examples should help to make the methods of calculation clear. In this instance it is assumed that three teams of different strengths are involved in a small friendly tournament on neutral territory.
Before the tournament the three teams have the following point totals.
| Team |
Points
|
| A |
630
|
| B |
500
|
| C |
480
|
Thus, team A is by some distance the highest ranked of the three:
The following table shows the points allocations based on three possible outcomes of the match between the strongest team A, and the somewhat weaker team B:
Example 1
Team A versus Team B (Team A stronger than Team B)
|
Team A |
Team B |
Team A |
Team B |
Team A |
Team B
|
| Score
|
3 : 1 |
1 : 3 |
2 : 2
|
|
|
20 |
20 |
20 |
20 |
20 |
20
|
|
|
1.5 |
1.5 |
1.5 |
1.5 |
1 |
1
|
|
|
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0.5 |
0.5
|
|
|
0.679 |
0.321 |
0.679 |
0.321 |
0.679 |
0.321
|
| Total (P)
|
+9.63 |
-9.63 |
-20.37 |
+20.37 |
-3.58 |
+3.58
|
Example 2
Team B versus Team C (both teams approximately the same strength)
When the difference in strength between the two teams is less, so also will be the difference in points allocation. The following table illustrates how the points would be divided following the same results as above, but with two roughly equally ranked teams, B and C, being involved:
|
Team B |
Team C |
Team B |
Team C |
Team B |
Team C
|
| Score
|
3–1 |
1–3 |
2–2
|
|
|
20 |
20 |
20 |
20 |
20 |
20
|
|
|
1.5 |
1.5 |
1.5 |
1.5 |
1 |
1
|
|
|
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0.5 |
0.5
|
|
|
0.529 |
0.471 |
0.529 |
0.471 |
0.529 |
0.471
|
| Total (P)
|
+14.13 |
-14.13 |
-15.87 |
+15.87 |
-0.58 |
+0.58
|
Note that Team B drops more ranking points by losing to Team C, which is approximately the same strength, than by losing to Team A, which is considerably better than Team B.
Elo ratings in unaffiliated football teams
See also
Notes
- at preset as Russia
- at present as Serbia
- On 1 January 2006, Football Federation Australia moved from the OFC to the AFC
- Algeria had only played 8 matches to this point.
- South Africa had only played 1 match to this point.
- as Soviet Union
- as FR of Yugoslavia
- Wales was in 3rd place from its first match in 1876 to 1902, in a period that only 3 to 4 teams were in the rankings
- ^ The combined Ireland national football team was in 4th place from its first match in 1882 to 1902, in a period that only 4 teams were in the rankings
- Trinidad and Tobago were in 11th place after their first match in July 1905, but had slipped to 32nd place before their second match in 1923.
- Guyana was in 15th and last place after their first match in July 1905, but was in 22nd place (out of 26) before their second match in 1915.
- as Zaire
- arrow indicates the current trend
- Representing West Germany from 1949 to 1990
- Combined record of the USSR (1970-1992), the CIS (1992), and Russia national football teams (1992-present)
- Combined record of the Czechoslovakian (1970-1992) and Czech national football teams (1993-present)
- Combined record of Yugoslavia (1970-1992), Serbia and Montenegro (1994-2006) and Serbia national football teams (2006-present)
- Includes the record of the Great Britain Olympic football team in the 1908, 1912 and 1920 Olympics
- In the 1940s, most national teams did not play games until after the end of World War II, making comparison of countries for this decade weak. For example, Mexico did not play any matches between Feb 1938 and July 1947, so that the average over the decade mostly reflects the single Elo rating achieved in February 1938
- Combined record of Yugoslavia (1990-1992) and FR of Yugoslavia (1994-1999)
- Combined record of Czechoslovakia (1990-1992) and Czech national football teams (1993-1999)
- Combined record of the USSR (1990-1992), the CIS (1992), and Russia national football teams (1992-1999)
- up to 1 January 2018
- In those terms, most surprising may have been the 2:1 win of Luxembourg (Elo rating 1036) over Switzerland (ER 1794) in a World Cup qualification match in September 2008 (a 758 point difference). In another World Cup qualifier in October 2004 Liechtenstein (ER 1049) held the 853 points higher rated Portuguese team (ER 1902) to a 2:2 draw.
References
- "The World Football Elo Rating System". Eloratings.net. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- J. Lasek, Z. Szlávik and S. Bhulai (2013), The predictive power of ranking systems in association football, Int. J. Applied Pattern Recognition1: 27-46.
- "World Football Elo Ratings". Elo ratings. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
- "FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking" (Press release). FIFA. 7 June 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
- Graph of rankings at eloratings.net. Yearly graphs, like this one for 2018, give enough resolution. For individual dates, the Elo ratings table is also a good source.
- "History of the Football Union of Russia". Rfs.ru. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
- ^ World Football Elo Ratings; under the columns tab choose "Highest Rank / Rating"
- Elorating evolution up to the year 1902 at eloratings.net
- Arpad E. Elo, The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, Arco, 1978. ISBN 0-668-04721-6.
- Arpad Elo, Chess Life, 1962.
- About the Chessmetrics Rating System, by Jeff Sonas
- Upsets at eloratings.net (per June 2018 this page is under reconstruction)
- ^ As the Great Britain national amateur team
- Starting Ratings 1930 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1934 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1938 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1950 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1954 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1958 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1962 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1966 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1970 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1974 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1978 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1982 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1986 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1990 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1994 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 1998 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 2002 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 2006 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 2010 World Cup at eloratings.net
- Starting Ratings 2014 World Cup at eloratings.net
External links
Categories:
2
4
.svg){kind=small}
Hungary
Bern
Johannesburg
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Mexico City
Belgium
Italy
Spain
Turkey
China *
Walthamstow
Norway
Egypt *
Hungary
Fiji
New Zealand
Nouméa
Ghana
Germany
Russia *
South Korea *
Trinidad and Tobago
Port-au-Prince
Paraguay
Guayaquil
Croatia
Germany
Costa Rica
Guatemala
United States
Venezuela
Bolivia
Montserrat
British Virgin Islands
Fort-de-France
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
_football_flag.png){kind=small}
