Republic of Ireland Team Talk/News/Rumours

Wales are now ranked 10th. Ahead of Spain. Jesus Christ.....

Beefy78 wrote: »

What exactly in the methodology that is used do people have an issue with?

A lot of people aren't too happy with the weighting of the ranking based on you're opponent.

The strength of each team is determine by a score of 200- their ranking position. It is capped at 50. The calculationfor points is Result*Importance*Team Strength*Confederation.

So let's say in the Euros we draw with Spain 1-1.
Points would be like:

1*3*188*1= 564 ranking points

Now say the next tournament we beat Cape Verde Islands in the world cup 1-0 (they are currently one place ahead of us)

3*4*149*.85= 1519.8 ranking points

Now cape verde islands bet Portugal recently in a friendly ( a second string portuguese side without their main starters)

Now lets say we drew with Germany in the qualifiers away from home:

1*2.5*198*1= 495

Now let's say we end up beating Faroe Islands 1-0 at home in the qualifiers:

3*2.5*126*1= 945


People argue mostly about the weighting of the rankings. Surely it's crazy that beating someone like Faroe Islands ranked well below you would gain you nearly double the points than drawing with the world champions away from home while being 50 spots behind them in the ranking.

It would be difficult of course to get a perfect system but personally (and others I would expect too) feel that the current one does not take in a fair reflection of the quality of the opposition.

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Not necessarily disagreeing with your points but aren't many of these flaws in the ranking system akin to the flaws of the football scoring system itself.
e.g., you get 3 times as many points in the qualifying group for beating Gibraltar 7-0 than you get for drawing 1-1 in Germany, you don't get extra points for it being away from home, you get nothing for a gutsy and unlucky victory etc.
If all the above are considered good enough for the actual playing of the game of football then why should a ranking system be criticised for not ironing them out (notwithstanding that it does make some small efforts which people think aren't enough).

I don't have a complaint about the scoring system in football (i.e 3 points, 1 point etc) and think the ranking system is a lot different. I feel the ranking relys too heavily on win lose or draw and not enough on opponent quality.

With normal football leagues we know the format. It's divided into different level of leagues and in order to progress you have to play each team in your level twice and only if you are one of the best you can progress, and if you are the worse you drop down.

Now if a similar structure was brought in place internationally the rankings would look a lot different. For example look at the top 20 in the world rankings:

Argentina
Germany
Belgium
Columbia
Holland
Brazil
Portugal
Romania
England
Wales
Chile
Spain
Uruguay
Croatia
Slovakia
Austria
Italy
Switzerland
Algeria
Czech Republic

Now if they were to play in a league and played each other twice I would wager the league table wouldn't look like that by the end of it. So you would ask questions like about are these rankings correct? Are Romania better than Spain, Chile, Uruguay? Are Wales? Are Belgium the third best team in the world?

For me rankings have a lot to do with opponent selection for friendlies and also luck of the draw in qualifiers. Ireland could be higher in the rankings if we chose games against teams we know we can beat rather than teams that would sell tickets. This then can affect rankings which then sees luck being a bit crucial in the draw as some teams in each tier aren't actually at that level and are beatable which can lead to more ranking points.

If they scraped theleagues and brought in a similar system for club football I imagine the ranking table would look very strange and not a true reflection of the best teams.

The problem with International football is it would be tough to have a structure similar to club football. It would be hard to organise and set up in terms of how many go up, how many go down, qualifications for tournaments, amount of time available for matches etc.

Most people when they criticise the ranking system don't have general complaints of scoring system but rather feel a new method of calculation should be considered for reflecting the quality of the opponent you are against and it should not rely so heavily on the actual win, lose, draw result

loyatemu wrote: »

in a qualifying group you're only competing with the other teams in that group - you all play each other twice so it's perfectly fair. In the rankings they're trying to compare teams who haven't played each other, so they use a weighting system.

Exactly. It's difficult to find a perfect weighting system that truly reflects the difficulty of the match.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/10/republic-ireland-martin-oneill-leicester-city-job?CMP=share_btn_tw

yeeeeeeeeesssss

damian139 wrote: »

mick could still do a job, the question is- would he want it. he got dogs abuse from some sectors towards the end of, and after, his last tenure

I think he was very coy about it when asked about the job the last time it came available in September 2013 (he was in charge of Ipswich then I think). My guesses are he would take the job if an offer came his way and the circumstances were right.

Played some great football under him back in the early 2000's.