Whilst they may be controversial and unpopular at times, the FIFA World Rankings play a crucial role in determining which teams countries will play against at major tournaments and in qualification matches.
A higher ranking means a higher pot, which can be the difference between an easy ride, or getting tossed into a group of death.
The Socceroos know this, given they are locked in a battle to be the best team in Asia alongside the likes of Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.
The Sporting News analyses their past and present rankings, and how the rankings themselves are calculated.
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In the latest update of the world rankings released on June 20, the Socceroos are ranked as the 23rd best team in the world.
It saw them rise one place from their ranking in June, above the Ukraine and just one spot below continental rivals South Korea.
The ranking is also the highest ranking the Socceroos have achieved in 12 years, when they were at the same spot in July 2012.
Argentina are currently number one in the world, a honour they have held since winning the World Cup in 2022, and Japan are the best team in Asia, ranked 17th.
The Socceroos best ever FIFA world ranking placement came in September 2009, when they were ranked 14th in the world.
This came after a World Cup qualification campaign that yielded no defeats in the final round of a group featuring rivals Japan under the late Pim Veerbek and veteran members of the Golden Generation, including Mark Schwarzer, Tim Cahill and Harry Kewell.
The next highest places they have occupied are 16th and 19th, all in the same time period.
The Socceroos’ lowest moment came in late 2014, when they fell to 102 in the world rankings.
This came after a difficult year, where consecutive 6-0 defeats to Brazil and France spelled the end for Holger Osieck as coach, and a World Cup campaign where they lost all three games, albeit in the group of death with 2010 finalists Spain and the Netherlands and a Chile side that would become back-to-back Copa America winners in the next two years.
The rankings show no mercy, and the defeats against tough opposition and at the biggest tournament of all had its impact on Australia’s FIFA world ranking; their recovery began in early 2015 when they won the Asian Cup on home soil.
The process FIFA uses to calculate the world rankings can be a bit confusing, but the formula for figuring out a country’s points and hence their rankings is as follows:
Here P means points, I is the importance of a match, with a sliding scale from 5 to 60 in a World Cup quarter-final and beyond, W is the result of a match, with 1 for a win, 0.5 for a draw and 0 for a defeat, and We is the expected outcome of the match.
Those are a lot of letters and numbers, but FIFA offers this example:
Team A has 1300 points before the match and wins a continental qualifier against team B that has 1500 points.
For team A the formula is: P=1300+25*(1–(1/(10 exp (-(1300–1500)/600) +1)))
For team B the formula is: P = 1500 + 25 * (0- (1 / (10 exp (-(1500-1300)/600) + 1)))
Thus, team A wins 17 points and has P = 1317 points after the match. Team B loses the same amount of points and thus ends up with 1483 points after the match.
A full breakdown of the calculation FIFA uses can be found here.
Patrick is a freelance journalist who is currently based in Sydney, and primarily covers football for The Sporting News.
