European Championship
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[Editor’s note: this is an updated version of an article originally published in October 2023]
Football’s world rankings are a convenient way of measuring the difference in the stature of sides facing one another at a major tournament. Broadcasters can quickly explain to viewers, who might not be overly familiar with the likes of Romania or Georgia or Jamaica or Bolivia, how they rank compared to other nations.
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And at times, it makes for a story. Yesterday’s surprise victory for Slovakia (48) over Belgium (3) at Euro 2024 was — in FIFA rankings terms — the biggest upset the competition has ever seen. This is something of a surprise — it didn’t feel more of a shock than Iceland eliminating England in Euro 2016, for example.
But that’s the thing about the rankings: they’re not to be taken too seriously. They serve a purpose, but they shouldn’t be regarded as a competition in itself. That might seem strange to a fan of tennis, golf or snooker, for example, where being ranked No 1 in the world is a big deal.
But in football, no one particularly cares — and this is something to be celebrated, rather than decried.
Let’s start with the basics: why do we need FIFA rankings?
Well, before the rankings were introduced, the system of seedings at a World Cup was somewhat farcical. For most tournaments up until World Cup 1970, FIFA simply decided which teams should be seeded.
In 1970, there were no official seeds, and FIFA formed four pots of sides solely in order to keep certain teams apart (Israel and Morocco, in particular).
Ahead of the 1974 World Cup, there was a behind-closed-doors vote on which sides would be seeded. For the next few tournaments, the organising committee at least made that session public.
But this clearly wasn’t particularly scientific, and it was only from 1990 onwards that actual empirical results — performances at previous World Cups — were taken into consideration. But that effectively discriminated against emerging nations, so from 1998 (the rankings were considered too new to have much meaning in 1994), FIFA could factor in official rankings when selecting the seeds.
So while the precise rankings system remains something of a mystery to even the keenest football followers, it’s worth reiterating that the FIFA rankings do serve a purpose. If the alternative is FIFA executives arbitrarily deciding on seedings among themselves, then it’s probably worth having official rankings.
Well, the problem in football is that international sides only play about a dozen matches a year. Some of those will pit world-beaters against minnows, and others will be non-competitive matches, so there isn’t much information to factor into the rankings.
The precise algorithm used to calculate the rankings has been criticised and subsequently overhauled several times: in 1999, 2006 and most notably, 2018, after complaints that various sides — particularly Switzerland and Poland — were trying to ‘game’ the system by limiting the number of friendlies they played.
That’s different from a sport like tennis or golf, where the best in the world regularly participate in the same tournaments and compete directly against one another. There, a fair ranking system is considerably easier to formulate.
This is good because there’s no tension between tournament results and world ranking, which is sometimes the case in other sports.
In April 2009, Dinara Safina became the No 1 ranked tennis player despite having never won one of the four Grand Slam tournaments, which prompted a debate about the merits of the system, and about Safina’s real level of ability.
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“It’s a great honour to reach the No 1 ranking and it is a dream that every girl who has ever wanted to play professional tennis shares,“ Safina said.
First, you question whether that is a) true or b) desirable. Should players grow up dreaming of being ranked first, rather than winning something? Interestingly, Carlos Alcaraz did the same in 2022, albeit as a Grand Slam champion. “It’s a dream come true being No 1 in the world,” he said.
Safina’s ranking prompted a backlash, including from Serena Williams, who had won the previous two Grand Slam titles when Safina first became No 1. After winning Wimbledon in July 2009, Williams was asked about her level of motivation to regain top spot.
“If you win three Grand Slam titles (in a year), you should be No 1 — but (that’s not the situation) in the WTA tour,” she said. “But maybe my motivation is to win another Grand Slam and stay No 2, I guess?
“Dinara did a great job to get to No 1 — she won (the somewhat less prestigious) Rome and Madrid,” Williams continued, before bursting into laughter. It was somewhere between a dig at the ranking system and a dig at Safina.
It seemingly affected Safina, who was constantly asked when she was going to win a Grand Slam. She never did.
“I felt stupid saying I was world No 1,” Safina confessed many years later.
In 2011, in snooker, Ronnie O’Sullivan complained that he felt ‘blackmailed’ to compete in smaller tournaments because of the rankings points on offer. “They put these ranking events on and the winner’s prize is not great,” he complained.
“Most players are going there and losing money, but they’re putting ranking points on so it’s forcing the players to play in it, which is not great, but what do you do? You have to go.”
At that point, O’Sullivan was ranked No 12 in the world. He won the next two World Championships, but because of underperformance or absence at less prestigious events, was not ranked No 1 during that period.
In golf, two Englishmen, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood, have been ranked No 1 without winning a major. But tennis remains the better sport for comparison, particularly now players receive a trophy for being ranked first in the world, which seems like overkill.
Interestingly, Andy Murray once said that he received more congratulatory messages from fellow players when he first topped the rankings than he did after any of his tournament victories. That suggests professional tennis players acknowledge the rankings rewarding consistency over a year, almost (to use football terms) like it is the league table, and the Grand Slams are more like cup competitions.
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Tennis introduced ranking points, in 1973, for essentially the same reasons as football did a couple of decades later: to create objective entry criteria for tournaments, rather than leaving it solely in the hands of the organisers of each tournament. Over time, though, it’s become a competition in itself.
But sporting success should not be judged on algorithms, on complex ranking points totted up in minor events at the expense of doing it on the greatest stage. It should be judged upon who wins the majors, the Slams, the World Championship, and settled on the pitch — not on spreadsheets.
And in football, there is no tension, not even the remotest debate about this, even during a tournament. The rankings serve their purpose. They measure long-term progress, they help decide seedings — but being ranked No 1 is not, in itself, something to aspire to.
And that’s exactly how it should be.
(Top photo: Robbie Jay Barratt/Getty Images)
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Michael Cox concentrates on tactical analysis. He is the author of two books – The Mixer, about the tactical evolution of the Premier League, and Zonal Marking, about footballing philosophies across Europe. Follow Michael on Twitter @Zonal_Marking
