29th November, 2013
Former Super Eagles’ coach, Chief Adegboye Onigbinde has said that the world football governing body, FIFA was right in its latest ranking that put Nigeria 36th in the world.
In the ranking for the month of November, Nigeria dropped three place from 33rd to 36th and this has generated uproar among Nigerians who are condemning the monthly world ranking as not being fair to the Eagles who just secured a ticket to play in the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and held a football playing nation in Europe, Italy to a 2-2 draw in an international friendly match all in November.
Speaking with P.M.NEWS Sports early today on telephone, Onigbinde, FIFA/CAF Instructor, said that Nigerians were unjustly condemning FIFA as the ranking was the true position of how Nigeria fared in the month under review.
“I think it is time we acquaint ourselves with technical details of how FIFA arrived at its ranking,” said Onigbinde, who took the Eagles to the Japan/Korea 2002 World Cup.
“FIFA always take into consideration the level of opposition which a team play and the places of the teams on ranking table. For example, we are saying Nigeria qualified for the World Cup, but we forget to note that Ethiopia that we defeated were lowly rated on FIFA ranking. We played an international friendly game against another lowly rated Jordan who beat us 1-0. We only had a good draw match with a highly rated Italian team in London which was not enough to push us on the ranking.
“So many Nigerians are ignorant of these technicalities of the procedure of the world ranking. I will only advice that before we’ll condemn we should have our facts right,” he said.
Meanwhile, former Golden Eaglets’ coach, Monday Odigie, believes there is no much ado about the ranking as FIFA knows the criteria better than an average football follower.
He advised the Super Eagles not to allow the ranking to demoralise them, but spur them to perform better in subsequent matches, “I don’t think there is much to desire from the ranking but it should serve as a wake-up call to the team because there is high expectations from the team,” opined Odigie.
Former Eagles’ goalkeeper and assistant coach of the team, Joe Erico said that he is not bothered about the position of Nigeria in the latest ranking, adding that what is most important now is for Stephen Keshi and his team to excel in next year’s FIFA World Cup.
Erico stated that it is very sad that despite the performance of Eagles in the just concluded qualifying series where a World Cup ticket was secured and a good game against Italy, the country dropped by three points in the ranking.
“Nigerians should not bother about the latest ranking. I know that many Nigerians will be worried about the FIFA ranking, but all I can say is that Nigerians should not take this seriously and continue to pray and support the Eagles to succeed in next year’s World Cup,” he said.
FIFA World Ranking Procedure
The basic logic of these calculations is simple: any team that does well in world football wins points which enable it to climb the world ranking.
A team’s total number of points over a four-year period is determined by adding: the average number of points gained from matches during the past 12 months; and the average number of points gained from matches older than 12 months (depreciates yearly). Calculation of points for a single match
The number of points that can be won in a match depends on the following factors:
• Was the match won or drawn? (M)
• How important was the match (ranging from a friendly match to a FIFA World Cup match)? (I)
• How strong was the opposing team in terms of ranking position and the confederation to which they belong? (T and C)
These factors are brought together in the following formula to ascertain the total number of points (P).
P = M x I x T x C
The following criteria apply to the calculation of points:
a. M: Points for match result
•Teams gain 3 points for a victory, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a defeat. In a penalty shoot-out, the winning team gains 2 points and the losing team gains 1 point.
b. I: Importance of match
•Friendly match (including small competitions): I = 1.0
•FIFA World Cup qualifier or confederation-level qualifier: I = 2.5
•Confederation-level final competition or FIFA Confederations Cup: I = 3.0
•FIFA World Cup final competition: I = 4.0
cut: Strength of opposing team
The strength of the opponents is based on the formula: 200 – the ranking position of the opponents
As an exception to this formula, the team at the top of the ranking are always assigned the value 200 and the teams ranked 150th and below are assigned a minimum value of 50. The ranking position is taken from the opponents’ ranking in the most recently published FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.
Strength of confederation
When calculating matches between teams from different confederations, the mean value of the confederations to which the two competing teams belong is used. The strength of a confederation is calculated on the basis of the number of victories by that confederation at the last three FIFA World Cup competitions. Their values are as follows:
UEFA/CONMEBOL – 1.00 CONCACAF – 0.88
AFC/CAF – 0.86 OFC – 0.85
—Taiwo Adelu, Adebobola Alawode & Sunday Akintoye