After a frenetic summer, in which we had Euros, Copa América, Africa Cup of Nations, OFC Nation’s Cup, Asian Cup qualifiers, the East Asian Championship and lots of friendlies, the FIFA Women’s Ranking has shaken up.

Before getting into the numbers and analysis, here’s an explanation on how the formula works.

 

 

Positions 1 – 60

 

Click to enlarge.

Spain are the new leaders, which will certainly raise some eyebrows since they didn’t win the Euros. Moreover, England, now back-to-back champions, are in fourth place behind Sweden, who they knocked-out in the quarter-finals. How do we explain that? Some may think FIFA has no logic.

However, let us remember that this table doesn’t sort teams by titles or how makes farther into a tournament, but by a formula which gives or takes points depending on their results.

England started the summer 34 behind Spain, and managed to get 23 in the Euros. The defeat to France in the opening match cost them 18 points, and beating the Netherlands gave them 18. Thus, after two games, their net gain was zero. Beating their neighbours Wales gives them little points as they are relatively low in the table. In the knock-out stages they beat Sweden and Spain on penalties, and Italy in extra time, which gives fewer points than winning in 90 minutes. Hence, the Lionesses only get 23 points and gain just one position.

 

 

Sweden gained 36 points, of which 22 came from their 4-1 trashing of Germany. This formula takes into account the score, and the bigger the margin of victory, the mor points you get. Thus, hammering one of the best teams in the world in a continental tournament will naturally grant huge points.

Spain, as mentioned before, were already 34 points ahead of England and this summer added a further 32, thanks to their six wins and a draw. That’s why they are still ahead of England despite losing the final. However, the loss on penalties in the Euros final took away the points they gained in the semifinal, because unlike the men’s ranking, in the women’s ranking losses in KO stages do deduct points.

 

 

In the Top 10, the most improved team is France with 47 points and a four-place gain, following a draw and five wins, three of which were against some heavy-weights: Brazil, England and the Netherlands. With this, Les bleues climb to sixth place and are back in pot 1 zone for the World Cup draw.

Brazil is an interesting case study. They won the Copa América but lose 28 points and drop three places. How is that possible?! This is because most of the opponents they faced are low in the table and that gives very little points or even makes them lose points, if they don’t fulfil the result that the formula expects.

For example, they beat Venezuela 2-0 but lose points because the formula expected them to win by at least a three-goal difference. Moreover, something I don’t like about this formula is that, in some cases, no matter what the score is, teams know they will lose points even before the initial whistle. This happens when the difference in points is greater than 800 points, and in this case, the gap between Brazil and Bolivia was 814. Brazil won 6-0 but even if they had won 20, they would still have lost points.

Additionally, the wins over Paraguay and Uruguay give less than half a point each due to the gap between them, and their draws with Colombia cost them a lot: 14 in the group stage and six in the final. Despite winning the final on penalties, the formula punishes Brazil because it expected them to win in 90 minutes.

Thus, Brazil are at a disadvantage when it comes to climbing in this ranking. While the Europeans have qualifiers for the Euros and can get many points in that tournament because they face opponents in better positions, Brazil has no qualifiers to get points from, and in the tournament, their opponents are so low that they barely get points.

For example, the strongest opponent Brazil can face is (according to the ranking) Colombia and even then, beating them would give them only between 3 and points depending on the score. For comparison, a win over a strong team in the Euros gives lots of points: England and France got 18 and 16 points for beating the Netherlands, respectively; Italy got 16 for beating Norway, and Sweden gained 22 for their trashing of Germany.

Thus, the only time Brazil can get any meaningful points is at World Cups and Olympics.

 

 

In the Top 60, Uruguay are the best movers. They get 49 points, of which 29 come from their 3-0 win over Chile, and nine from the third-place match against Argentina. The formula expected them to lose to the Albiceleste in 90 minutes, but since they managed to take it to penalties, they are rewarded despite losing from the spot. With that, Uruguay gain eight places to reach 55th, their best position in their history.

 

Positions 61 – 120

 

Click to enlarge.

The best team this summer is Bangladesh, who get 80 points and climb 24 places thanks to their three wins in the Asian Cup qualifiers. As we know, the higher the opponent and the greater the margin of victory, the more points you get, and here, Bangladesh beat Turkmenistan 7-0 to get 17 points. The repeated the dose to Bahrain 7-0, an opponent 36 positions above them, which gives 29 points. Finally, they beat Myanmar, a team 73 places above them, to get 35 points.

 

 

Other teams that shone in these qualifiers include:

India, who won all four matches and get 40 points (28 of them for beating Thailand).

Nepal, who won two games (+20 points vs Laos y +7 vs Sri Lanka) and managed to draw with Uzbekistan (+19 pts), a team 49 places ahead of them.

Malaysia, who won four of their five matches and get 29 points for a 10-place jump.

The OFC Nation’s Cup also proved impactful in the ranking.

Solomon Islands were crowned and climb 13 places thanks to their four wins in five matches, which gave them 62 points. However, for some reason, despite winning the final in extra time, FIFA awarded the points as if it had been in regular time. FIFA gave 24.33 points for this match (which would correspond to a win in 90 minutes) when it should be 19.83 for winning in extra time. Did they… forget?

 

 

Samoa get 49 points and move 13 places after winning three matches, the most valuable being their 2-0 away win over Fiji in the third-place match.

Vanuatu also get 62 points and climb 19 places for winning three of their four matches.

Since this formula takes into account the home field advantage, winning at home gives fewer points but losing cost dearly, and Fiji, hosts of the tournament, can testify that. Their wins over Solomon Islands and Tonga gave only eight points combined, but the losses to Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Samoa cost them 32, 16 and 30 points, respectively, for a total loss of 70 points.

 

Positions 121 – 180

 

Click to enlarge.

In this part of the table, the best movers are Pakistan and Bhutan. The former got 57 points following their wins over Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan in the Asian Cup qualifiers, while the latter got 51 points for beating Singapore and Lebanon, all of which were ahead of them in the table.

 

Positions 181 – 196

 

Click to enlarge.

Last but not least, in the lower end of the table there are no movements because no one played. Only the Cayman Islands and South Sudan played a few friendlies, but they were excluded by FIFA.

In total, 220 matches were played, of which 24 were not included in the calculation, all of them friendlies.

 

Next update: December 10.