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Action Network’s International Soccer Power Rankings: Brazil takes the top spot, Argentina 5th

Action Network’s International Soccer Power Rankings: Brazil takes the top spot, Argentina 5th article feature image
Credit:

Eddie Keogh – The FA/The FA via Getty Images. Pictured: England stars Harry Kane (second from right), Raheem Sterling (right) and their teammates.

After the historic 2022 World Cup that saw Lionel Messi and Argentina bring home the title, there has been a lot of changes to The Action Network International Soccer Power Rankings. 

I’ve updated the rankings after the tournament and still Brazil have taken No. 1 spot. Germany is second, followed by England, Spain, and Argentina to round out the top five on the global scene.

After crashing out in the Round of 16, the United States of America is still sitting inside the top 10.

That said, let’s take a look at the latest rankings.

Rank Country
1 Brazil
2 Germany
3 England
4 Spain
5 Argentina
6 Portugal
7 France
8 Italy
9 Netherlands
10 Uruguay
11 Denmark
12 Colombia
13 Belgium
14 Norway
15 Ecuador
16 Switzerland
17 Croatia
18 Scotland
19 Austria
20 USA
21 Czech Republic
22 Senegal
23 Morocco
24 Nigeria
25 Poland
26 Serbia
27 Mexico
28 Paraguay
29 Sweden
30 Ivory Coast
31 Chile
32 Ukraine
33 Peru
34 Albania
35 Canada
36 Turkey
37 Wales
38 Bosnia-Herzegovina
39 Japan
40 Greece
41 Romania
42 Venezuela
43 South Korea
44 Montenegro
45 Hungary
46 North Macedonia
47 Mali
48 Algeria
49 Slovakia
50 Russia
Rank Country
51 Ireland
52 Cameroon
53 Slovenia
54 Armenia
55 Israel
56 Bolivia
57 Georgia
58 New Zealand
59 Ghana
60 Finland
61 Iceland
62 Kosovo
63 Northern Ireland
64 Iran
65 Egypt
66 Tunisia
67 Panama
68 Faroe Islands
69 Moldova
70 Luxembourg
71 Qatar
72 Guinea
73 Jamaica
74 Australia
75 Honduras
76 Haiti
77 Uzbekistan
78 Saudi Arabia
79 Cyprus
80 Curacao
81 Zambia
82 Burkina Faso
83 Bulgaria
84 Iraq
85 Estonia
86 Jordan
87 Kazakhstan
88 Oman
89 Andorra
90 Kenya
91 Azerbaijan
92 Latvia
93 Dominican Republic
94 Cape Verde Islands
95 Bahrain
96 Palestine
97 Costa Rica
98 Malta
99 Congo DR
100 El Salvador
101 Angola
102 Mozambique
103 Equatorial Guinea
104 Suriname
105 Belarus
106 Benin
107 Togo
108 Rwanda
109 Lithuania
110 Thailand
111 Madagascar
112 UAE
113 Congo
114 Guatemala
115 Gabon
116 Philippines
117 Uganda
118 Cuba
119 Swaziland
120 Ethiopia
121 China
122 Libya
123 South Africa
124 Kyrgyzstan
125 Tanzania
126 Syria
127 Lesotho
128 Nicaragua
129 Kuwait
130 Namibia
131 Malawi
132 Guinea-Bissau
133 Niger
134 Lebanon
135 São Tomé and P.
136 Sudan
137 Fiji
138 Vietnam
139 Papua New Guinea
140 Sierra Leone
141 Tahiti
142 Cook Islands
143 Vanuatu
144 Solomon Islands
145 Trinidad and Tobago
146 New Caledonia
147 Samoa
148 South Sudan
149 Zimbabwe
150 American Samoa
151 Tonga
152 Burundi
153 Liberia
154 Botswana
155 Central Africa Republic
156 Afghanistan
157 Yemen
158 Gambia
159 Mauritania
160 Singapore
161 Hong Kong
162 Comoros
163 Tajikistan
164 Turkmenistan
165 Barbados
166 Malaysia
167 India
168 Cambodia
169 Montserrat
170 San Marino
171 Gibraltar
172 Grenada
173 Djibouti
174 Sri Lanka
175 Indonesia
176 Liechtenstein
177 Chad
178 Somalia
179 Eritrea
180 Seychelles
181 Myanmar
182 Puerto Rico
183 Nepal
184 Mongolia
185 Bangladesh
186 Guam
187 Dominica
188 Brunei
189 Macau
190 Laos
191 Bhutan
192 Timor-Leste
193 Pakistan
194 St. Kitts and Nevis
195 Maldives
196 Saint Lucia
197 Taiwan
198 Anguilla
199 Belize
200 Guyana
201 Bahamas
202 St. Vincent
203 Antigua and Barbuda
204 British Virgin Islands
205 Aruba
206 Turks and Caicos
207 Bermuda
208 US Virgin Islands
209 Cayman Islands

Goal of These Rankings

The reason I decided to take on this project was because I saw a lot of weaknesses in the FIFA rankings and the organization’s path to properly determining who’s the best team in the world. FIFA’s rankings are “results based”, which I think is a major flaw given what we know about the long run statistical regression of expected goals.

For example, an uber talented team that puts up incredible underlying numbers, like Germany, crashes out in the group stage of the World Cup after getting caught on the wrong side of variance in two matches and because of that will drop significantly in the FIFA Rankings. That’s not indicative indicative of trying to project who the best teams in the world are, in my opinion.

So, I decided to try and combat that by creating my own power rankings, to determine who’s the world’s best team based on a couple different factors that have nothing to do with what FIFA uses to create its rankings.

Four Factors Determining Rankings

1)  Expected Goals Results

I am a big believer that expected goals is a better indicator of a nation’s performance rather than just what the final score winds up being.


Expected Goals or (xG) measure the quality of a chance by calculating the likelihood that it will be scored from a particular position on the pitch during a particular phase of play. This value is based on several factors from before the shot was taken. xG is measured on a scale between zero and one, where zero represents a chance that is impossible to score and one represents a chance that a player would be expected to score every single time.


I have gone through and logged every country’s xG results, but only from competitive competitions, meaning no results from friendlies or Nations League competitions were included.

Note: All xG results are from matches in the competitions listed below that have occurred from January 1st 2021 until today. 

Here are the following competitions that are included for each confederation:

UEFA (Europe) 

    • European Championship Qualifiers
    • European Championships
    • World Cup Qualifiers

CONMEBOL (South America)

    • Copa America
    • World Cup Qualifiers

CONCACAF (North America)

    • Gold Cup
    • World Cup Qualifiers

CAF (Africa)

    • Africa Cup of Nations Qualifiers
    • World Cup Qualifiers
    • Africa Cup of Nations*

AFC (Asia)

    • World Cup Qualifiers

OFC (Ocenia)

    • World Cup Qualifiers

World Cup

2) Transfer Value Adjustment

I use Michael Caley’s method of using a team’s overall transfer value to account for the talent level of each country.

Using Transfermarkt data and running a few different calculations, these are the top 25 countries based on total transfer-market value, along with the amount added or subtracted (if the countries total transfer value is below the world average) to their xG differential to help determine the overall rating.

*(data via transfermarkt.com)

3) FIFA Coefficients

Similar to the idea of UEFA Coefficients, which help determine how many teams each country can get into the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League, I wanted to put a coefficient on each continent.

UEFA Coefficients are determined by how well the club teams from each country do in European competitions.

So, I applied that same method to FIFA Coefficients by going back through the last five World Cup competitions and gave out point values (based on the criteria below), along with a weight for the average transfer value by continent to get to a value that can be added to each country’s rating based on what continent it resides in.

FIFA Coefficient Points: 

  1. Two points: For all wins in the group stage & knockout stage
  2. One point: For all draws in the group stage
  3. Two points: Bonus for finishing second in the group
  4. Four points: Bonus for winning the group
  5. One point: Bonus for each round reach from the Round 16 onward

After some calculations, here are the following “FIFA Coefficients” that are added to each country’s xG differential plus transfer value adjustment:

As you can see, Europe and South America are weighted far greater than the rest of the world, which makes sense considering no team outside of Europe or South America has made the semifinal round in the last four tournaments.

4) Strength of Schedule 

Strength of Schedule needs to be taken into account when determining rankings like this:

Worldwide

Even though FIFA coefficients can give us a good weight for each continent’s true level of play, another strength of schedule at the world level is necessary to properly rate each country.

So, there’s a “final ranking before strength of schedule adjustment,” which is the Final rating after taking into account xGDiff plus transfer value adjustment plus a strength of schedule adjustment.

The strength of schedule adjustment is done by taking the average worldwide strength of schedule divided by the average rank of opponents faced minus 100 percent.


After all of that, we reach the final rating for each country, which is:

Final Rating = xGDiff per match + transfer value adjustment + FIFA coefficient + strength of schedule adjustment.

TAN World Soccer Ranking

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