In 1997, India competed against Bangladesh, Pakistan and Maldives for the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Cup and won the tournament defeating the Maldives in the final with a massive 5-1 win after being undefeated through the group stages. India failed to qualify for the two competitions as they won just once against the Philippines in the World Cup qualification. This stability saw a small rise in the rankings as they began 1996 on the 120th ranking.ĭuring the course of next two years, India played two sets of qualifiers with the 1998 World Cup and the AFC Asian Cup Preliminary Competition. India won twice against Pakistan in the two legs in AFC qualification, in addition to victories over fellow Asian sides Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and just lost thrice in the whole year. In comparison to 1994, India was more active in 1995 with the Asian Cup qualifiers and a lot of friendlies. This inactive year and unfavourable results saw India’s ranking slum even more as they were ranked No. In 1994, the Indian team played only four matches against Bangladesh, Yemen and Oman which included the lone win over neighbours Bangladesh. India ended the calendar year with just four wins from eighteen matches which put them on a rank of 109 at the start of 1994. India were part of the FIFA 1994 United States World Cup qualifiers and a poor showing in the qualifiers saw them slide down in the rankings despite a win in the inaugural SAARC Cup in Lahore. In the year 1993, India began on the 100th spot in the FIFA Rankings. We take a look at India’s movement in the FIFA rankings since the establishment of the ranking system in December 1992. It helps people view the opponents of their nation, but like any formula placed to calculate something in sports besides statistics, the FIFA World Rankings simply cannot get in all the factors.The Blue Tigers achieved a ranking of 96 in 2017 which was the side’s best ranking since February 1996 when they had reached 94, the country’s highest FIFA ranking ever. It is nice to have a system that calculates how strong a team is. There is no factor for consistency in making major tournaments.įootball, like any sport, is a game that cannot be rationalized. So while a nation like Austria or Slovakia can be boosted during the qualification period for a major tournament, a Mexico or the United States is penalized because their confederation is not looked viewed as strong. If a team is a powerhouse in their conference, their ranking cannot rise as much as a middle of the pack team in a better confederation.
This is because they are only playing teams within one confederation. The final huge issue is that teams are hurt during the time that a team is qualifying for a tournament. This allows opponents to earn more points in the eyes of the formula than a nation that is chosen to host a tournament. This means that if a team is hosting a tournament, they are playing friendly matches on international dates instead of the qualifying matches that their opponents in the tournament would be playing. Teams that are hosting a competition who do not need to qualify for the tournament do not get a special status on the ranking. If a team brings in their B squad roster and wins with them against a stronger opponent or loses with them to a weaker opponent, the fact that the side was weakened for whatever reason cannot be put into the calculations. The rankings also cannot award or take away points for real life scenarios for competitions. The rankings would in turn drop this team that showed a capability to contend with a strong side. If a bad ranked team is able to stifle the first or second ranked team for all 90 minutes of the game, the performance would be looked at as a great showing. This allows for historically strong teams to retain high positions even when they go through losing streaks and roster turnover.Īnother big issue is the calculation cannot possibly calculate form in a game. So if the calculation places a team as being ranked 30 but has a streak of good games where it beats highly ranked teams, the lower team gets boosted but the higher rank does not get moved as much because their value is less significant. A piece of the calculation is based on the last ranking the teams were given. The biggest issue is that the formula uses itself within it. The formula comes out P= M x I x T x C x 100. The strength of the confederations is calculated by the mean of the victories calculated at the last three World Cups. The final factor is the confederation's strength (C). Taking 200 and subtracting it from the team's ranking and then dividing it by 100 calculates this part. The third factor is the standing of the opposition, according to the most recent FIFA World Rankings that have been published (T).