World Football Elo Ratings

World Football Elo Ratings
Top 20 Rankings as of 19 April 2015^[1]
Rank	¹	²	Team	Points
1	2		Germany	2104
2	2		Argentina	2041
3	2		Brazil	2036
4	4		Colombia	2004
5			Netherlands	2000
6	4		Spain	1932
7	5		France	1931
8	2		Chile	1912
9	3		England	1903
10	1		Uruguay	1894
11	7	1	Belgium	1888
12	7	1	Mexico	1876
13	6		Portugal	1867
14	3		Italy	1853
15	17		Costa Rica	1827
16	7		Croatia	1814
17	3		Ecuador	1813
18	5		United States	1804
19	2		Ukraine	1783
20			Sweden	1774
Full rankings
Wikipedia			Elo ratings
Notes
1	^ Change from previous year
2	^ Change from previous week

The World Football Elo Ratings is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football. The method used to rank teams is based upon the Elo rating system method but modified to take various football-specific variables into account. These ratings should not be confused with the FIFA World Rankings, which is more prevalent because it is the official rating system used by the international governing body of football to rank national teams.

The ratings consider all international "A" matches for which results could be found. Ratings tend to converge on a team's true strength relative to its competitors after about 30 matches.^[2] Ratings for teams with fewer than 30 matches should be considered provisional.

The FIFA Women's World Rankings system uses a modified version of the Elo formula whereas the FIFA men's ranking system uses a non-Elo formula. A 2009 comparative study of eight methods found that the implementation of the Elo rating system described below had the highest predictive capability for football matches, while the men's FIFA ranking method performed poorly.^[3]

Top 60 ranking

The following table shows World Football Elo Ratings on 15 April 2015, using data from the World Football Elo Ratings web site.^[4]

Each national team's FIFA World Rankings are shown as they were on 09 April 2015.^[5]

Elo Rank	Team	Points	Confederation	FIFA Rank
1	Germany	2104	UEFA	1
2	Argentina	2041	CONMEBOL	2
3	Brazil	2036	CONMEBOL	5
4	Colombia	2004	CONMEBOL	4
5	Netherlands	2000	UEFA	6
6	Spain	1932	UEFA	10
7	France	1931	UEFA	11
8	Chile	1912	CONMEBOL	16
9	England	1903	UEFA	14
10	Uruguay	1894	CONMEBOL	8
11	Belgium	1888	UEFA	3
12	Mexico	1876	CONCACAF	18
13	Portugal	1867	UEFA	7
14	Italy	1853	UEFA	13
15	Costa Rica	1827	CONCACAF	15
16	Croatia	1814	UEFA	17
17	Ecuador	1813	CONMEBOL	34
18	United States	1804	CONCACAF	27
19	Ukraine	1783	UEFA	33
20	Sweden	1774	UEFA	39
21	Switzerland	1768	UEFA	9
22	Japan	1755	AFC	50
23	Romania	1753	UEFA	12
24	Czech Republic	1752	UEFA	19
25	Russia	1741	UEFA	32
26	Denmark	1738	UEFA	28
27	Ivory Coast	1737	CAF	23
28	Slovakia	1736	UEFA	20
29	Ghana	1731	CAF	26
30	Iran	1723	AFC	40

Elo Rank	Team	Points	Confederation	FIFA Rank
31	South Korea	1722	AFC	57
32	Australia	1718	AFC	63
33	Poland	1713	UEFA	35
34	Panama	1709	CONCACAF	53
35	Serbia	1708	UEFA	44
36	Republic of Ireland	1703	UEFA	62
37	Scotland	1701	UEFA	29
37	Peru	1701	CONMEBOL	64
39	Austria	1694	UEFA	25
39	Bosnia and Herzegovina	1691	UEFA	31
41	Turkey	1677	UEFA	52
42	Algeria	1671	CAF	21
43	Paraguay	1668	CONMEBOL	81
44	Venezuela	1667	CONMEBOL	69
45	Senegal	1658	CAF	36
46	Greece	1654	UEFA	24
46	United Arab Emirates	1654	AFC	68
48	Nigeria	1649	CAF	45
49	Iceland	1648	UEFA	38
50	Wales	1645	UEFA	22
51	Hungary	1622	UEFA	43
52	Egypt	1620	CAF	51
53	Slovenia	1619	UEFA	47
54	Uzbekistan	1612	AFC	73
55	Cameroon	1609	CAF	48
56	Bolivia	1604	CONMEBOL	92
57	Israel	1600	UEFA	46
58	South Africa	1599	CAF	60
59	Norway	1589	UEFA	70
59	Bulgaria	1589	UEFA	67

Strongest teams since the mid to late 1960s

Time averaged Elo or Elo-like scores are routinely used to compare chess player strengths.^[6]^[7]^[8] The following is a list of the national teams with the highest average Elo score from 1 January 1970 to 1 May 2015. Before this time intercontinental play was fairly limited and many nations in Africa, North America, and Asia had played too few games yet to create a representative Elo score. Since Elo scores reflect past accomplishments, the table represents the relative strength of national teams since the mid to late 1960s.

Rank	Country	Avg Elo
1	Brazil	2013.1
2	(West) Germany^[9]	1979.5
3	Netherlands	1927.2
4	England	1922.0
4	Italy	1922.0
6	Spain	1911.5
7	Argentina	1905.8
8	France	1882.6
9	Soviet Union → Russia^[10]	1851.1
10	Czechoslovakia → Czech Rep.^[11]	1830.6
11	Portugal	1819.2
12	Yugoslavia → Serbia^[12]	1815.2
13	Sweden	1798.7
14	Romania	1780.3
15	Mexico	1777.0
16	Uruguay	1774.8
17	Poland	1770.4

Rank	Country	Avg Elo
18	Belgium	1764.0
19	Denmark	1756.7
20	Scotland	1737.8
21	Paraguay	1725.9
22	Chile	1722.0
23	Republic of Ireland	1720.6
24	Bulgaria	1705.5
25	Australia	1700.7
26	Colombia	1689.5
27	Switzerland	1689.1
28	Austria	1688.7
29	Hungary	1684.4
30	Iran	1676.3
31	South Korea	1666.1
32	Greece	1657.5
33	Nigeria	1655.1
34	Egypt	1654.8

Rank	Country	Avg Elo
35	Wales	1652.4
36	Peru	1645.7
37	Israel	1644.1
38	Morocco	1642.8
39	Ivory Coast	1640.5
40	Cameroon	1637.3
41	Norway	1636.6
42	Turkey	1635.9
43	Ghana	1614.2
44	United States	1609.2
45	Northern Ireland	1604.5
46	Tunisia	1602.4
47	Costa Rica	1601.6
48	Iraq	1594.9
49	Japan	1594.5
50	Ecuador	1587.5
51	Algeria	1572.2

List of number one teams

The following is the list of nations who have achieved the number one position in the World Football Elo Ratings since 2000:

Start Date	Nation	# of days
5 Jun 1999	Brazil	389
28 Jun 2000	France	708
6 Jun 2002	Argentina	1
7 Jun 2002	France	4
11 Jun 2002	Netherlands	1
12 Jun 2002	Spain	4
16 Jun 2002	Netherlands	5
21 Jun 2002	Brazil	351
7 Jun 2003	Netherlands	4
11 Jun 2003	Brazil	8
19 Jun 2003	Netherlands	83
10 Sep 2003	France	291
27 Jun 2004	Czech Republic	4
1 Jul 2004	France	10
11 Jul 2004	Brazil	3

Start Date	Nation	# of days
14 Jul 2004	France	35
18 Aug 2004	Argentina	290
4 Jun 2005	Czech Republic	4
8 Jun 2005	Argentina	21
29 Jun 2005	Brazil	102
9 Oct 2005	Netherlands	3
12 Oct 2005	Brazil	265
4 Jul 2006	Italy	43
16 Aug 2006	France	52
7 Oct 2006	Brazil	122
6 Feb 2007	France	1
7 Feb 2007	Brazil	140
27 Jun 2007	France	14
11 Jul 2007	Argentina	4
15 Jul 2007	Brazil	334

Start Date	Nation	# of days
13 Jun 2008	Brazil / Netherlands	2
15 Jun 2008	Netherlands	6
21 Jun 2008	Spain	368
24 Jun 2009	Brazil	373
2 Jul 2010	Netherlands	1
3 Jul 2010	Netherlands / Spain	3
6 Jul 2010	Netherlands	1
7 Jul 2010	Spain	1089
30 Jun 2013	Brazil	45
14 Aug 2013	Spain	59
12 Oct 2013	Brazil	259
29 Jun 2014	Netherlands	5
4 Jul 2014	Brazil	4
8 Jul 2014	Germany	297

Ranking by days as leader since 1 January 2000

Nation	days	Last Date as Leader
Brazil	2464	8 July 2014
Spain	1523	12 October 2013
France	1115	10 July 2007
Argentina	316	14 July 2007
Germany	297	Current
Netherlands	114	4 July 2014
Italy	43	15 August 2006
Czech Republic	8	7 June 2005

All-time highest ratings

The following is a list of national football teams ranked by their highest Elo score ever reached.

Rank	Nation	Points	Date
1	Germany	2200	13 July 2014
2	Hungary	2166	30 June 1954
3	Brazil	2153	17 June 1962
4	Spain	2143	23 June 2013
5	Netherlands	2133	12 July 2014
6	Argentina	2117	3 April 1957
7	France	2106	15 August 2001
8	Italy	2079	20 July 1939
9	Poland	2047	1 September 1974
10	England	2041	22 October 1966
11	Uruguay	2035	13 June 1928
12	Russia	2023	9 October 1983 (as Soviet Union)
13	Colombia	2016	28 June 2014
14	Czech Republic	1999	27 June 2004
15	Austria	1998	31 May 1934
16	Portugal	1983	15 November 2000
17	Chile	1974	18 June 2014
18	Croatia	1968	11 July 1998
19	Denmark	1961	13 June 1986
19	Serbia	1961	25 June 1998 (as FR Yugoslavia)
21	Scotland	1953	10 March 1888
22	East Germany	1951	22 June 1974
23	Sweden	1950	25 June 1950
24	Mexico	1936	19 June 2005
25	Paraguay	1932	21 February 1954

Rank	Nation	Points	Date
26	Belgium	1916	9 September 1981
27	Norway	1914	13 June 2000
28	Romania	1910	9 June 1990
29	Greece	1896	18 August 2004
30	Republic of Ireland	1889	21 August 2002
31	Ivory Coast	1881	26 January 2013
32	Switzerland	1876	22 June 1994
33	Australia	1873	14 December 1997
34	United States	1872	8 July 2009
35	Turkey	1868	19 June 2003
36	Japan	1867	15 August 2001
37	Ecuador	1862	26 March 2013
38	Wales	1859	20 May 1981
39	Bulgaria	1856	15 June 1969
39	Peru	1856	11 June 1978
41	Cameroon	1849	26 June 2003
42	Costa Rica	1845	13 November 2014
43	Egypt	1835	31 January 2010
44	Iran	1824	8 June 2005
45	Ukraine	1821	15 November 2013
46	South Korea	1818	22 June 2002
47	Nigeria	1816	5 June 2004
48	Northern Ireland	1809	23 April 1986
49	Senegal	1803	16 June 2002
50	Ghana	1798	3 February 2008

Averages by decade

The table below shows the teams with the best average Elo score per decade (Jan 1 19X0 - Dec 31 19X9). Because the Elo scores take into account past achievements with an inertia of months, the averaging over a decade is more representative of the teams' strengths for a decade starting a few years earlier and ending with the latest results of the decade relatively underweighted. For instance, this partially explains England claiming #3 spot despite missing two WCs in the 70s, boosted by results legacy from the late 60s. Or conversely the surging of France in the late 90s and Spain in the late 00s not being fully reflected in that decade but rather on the subsequent one.

Rank	1920s		1930s		1940s ^[13]		1950s		1960s
1	1911	Uruguay	1976	Argentina	2036	Argentina	2025	Argentina	1962	Brazil
2	1873	Spain	1970	Italy	2018	Italy	1998	Hungary	1928	England
3	1859	Argentina	1899	Uruguay	1892	England	1996	Brazil	1924	Hungary
4	1843	Scotland	1868	Spain	1876	Brazil	1917	England	1923	Argentina
5	1820	Czechoslovakia	1867	England	1858	Spain	1870	West Germany	1917	Soviet Union
6	1795	Denmark	1859	Austria	1852	Uruguay	1856	Uruguay	1887	West Germany
7	1771	Brazil	1841	Scotland	1841	Scotland	1853	Italy	1867	Czechoslovakia
8	1768	England	1814	Czechoslovakia	1832	Germany	1850	Yugoslavia	1852	Italy
9	1761	Hungary	1810	Brazil	1815	Hungary	1817	Austria	1844	Spain
10	1760	Austria	1785	Hungary	1783	Mexico	1815	Spain	1840	Uruguay
11	1739	Netherlands	1767	Costa Rica	1768	Czechoslovakia	1799	Paraguay	1811	Yugoslavia
12	1712	Sweden	1759	Germany	1766	Austria	1796	Sweden	1801	Scotland
13	1701	Belgium	1685	Denmark	1746	Wales	1791	Scotland	1796	Sweden
14	1693	Italy	1682	Sweden	1734	Sweden	1753	France	1783	Mexico
15	1676	Portugal	1678	United States	1719	Paraguay	1728	Peru	1741	Austria

Rank	1970s		1980s		1990s		2000s		2010s ^[14]
1	2059	Brazil	1975	Brazil	1998	Brazil	1999	Brazil	2077	Spain
2	2040	West Germany	1964	West Germany	1988	Germany	1984	France	2054	Brazil
3	1948	England	1951	Soviet Union	1952	Italy	1966	Netherlands	2044	Germany
4	1933	Italy	1927	England	1928	France	1964	Argentina	2022	Netherlands
5	1888	Netherlands	1897	Argentina	1920	Netherlands	1955	Spain	1966	Argentina
6	1883	Poland	1890	Italy	1904	Spain	1942	Italy	1915	England
7	1878	Soviet Union	1884	Netherlands	1901	Yugoslavia^[15]	1916	England	1879	Uruguay
8	1869	East Germany	1884	France	1901	England	1891	Germany	1876	Portugal
9	1861	Argentina	1847	Spain	1869	Argentina	1887	Portugal	1870	Chile
10	1851	Spain	1840	Poland	1869	Denmark	1872	Czechia	1869	Italy
11	1838	Czechoslovakia	1820	Czechoslovakia	1843	Czechia^[16]	1838	Croatia	1847	Mexico
12	1831	Hungary	1819	Belgium	1836	Sweden	1825	Mexico	1845	France
13	1830	Yugoslavia	1818	Yugoslavia	1829	Croatia	1821	Denmark	1841	Croatia
14	1809	Scotland	1803	East Germany	1826	Russia^[17]	1807	Sweden	1836	Colombia
15	1803	Portugal	1784	Uruguay	1825	Mexico	1800	Romania	1809	Sweden
16	1793	Belgium	1784	Romania	1813	Romania	1791	United States	1808	Russia
17	1771	Sweden	1783	Scotland	1810	Portugal	1787	Ireland	1783	Ivory Coast
18	1766	Austria	1776	Sweden	1784	Colombia	1786	Turkey	1773	Ecuador
19	1766	Romania	1775	Austria	1777	Ireland	1783	Uruguay	1768	Switzerland
20	1755	France	1774	Denmark	1773	Belgium	1775	Australia	1765	United States

Highest rated matches

A list of the 15 matches between teams with the highest combined Elo ratings (the nations' points before the matches are given).

Rank	Combined points	Nation 1	Elo 1	Nation 2	Elo 2	Score	Date	Occasion	Location
1	4240	Germany	2180	Argentina	2060	1 : 0 ^aet	2014-07-13	World Cup F	Rio de Janeiro
1	4240	Germany	2200	Argentina	2040	2 : 4	2014-09-03	Friendly^[18]	Düsseldorf
3	4213	Netherlands	2101	Spain	2112	0 : 1 ^aet	2010-07-11	World Cup F	Johannesburg
4	4198	Brazil	2100	Germany	2098	1 : 7	2014-07-08	World Cup SF	Belo Horizonte
5	4192	Brazil	2064	Spain	2128	3 : 0	2013-06-30	Confederations Cup F	Rio de Janeiro
6	4161	West Germany	1995	Hungary	2166	3 : 2	1954-07-04	World Cup F	Bern
7	4159	Netherlands	2051	Brazil	2108	2 : 1	2010-07-02	World Cup QF	Port Elizabeth
8	4151	Brazil	2061	Netherlands	2090	0 : 0	2011-06-04	Friendly	Goiânia
9	4149	West Germany	2069	Brazil	2080	0 : 1	1973-06-16	Friendly	Berlin
10	4135	Netherlands	2075	Argentina	2060	0 : 0	2014-07-09	World Cup SF	São Paulo
11	4130	Spain	2086	Germany	2044	1 : 0	2010-07-07	World Cup SF	Durban
12	4121	Brazil	2051	West Germany	2070	1 : 0	1982-03-21	Friendly	Rio de Janeiro
13	4118	Hungary	2108	Brazil	2010	4 : 2	1954-06-27	World Cup QF	Bern
14	4116	Hungary	2141	Uruguay	1975	4 : 2	1954-06-30	World Cup SF	Lausanne
15	4113	West Germany	2079	Netherlands	2034	2 : 1	1974-07-07	World Cup F	Munich

Biggest upsets

A list of the 15 matches with the biggest point exchange.^[19] Since the importance of the match, the goal differential and the perceived home team advantage are factored in the point exchange, these are not necessarily the most surprising wins as expressed by the difference in Elo rating^[20] The nations' points before the matches are given.

Rank	Point exchange	Nation 1	Elo 1	Nation 2	Elo 2	Score	Date	Occasion
1	95	Sweden	1621	Belgium	1772	8 : 1	1924-05-29	Olympic Games
2	85	Fiji	1148	New Zealand	1535	4 : 0	1980-02-23	OFC Nations Cup
2	85	Czechoslovakia	1809	Argentina	1964	6 : 1	1958-06-15	World Cup
4	84	Poland	1583	Hungary	1823	3 : 0	1936-08-05	Olympic Games
5	82	Brazil	2100	Germany	2098	1 : 7	2014-07-08	World Cup
6	81	Ghana	1598	Czech Republic	1975	2 : 0	2006-06-17	World Cup
6	81	Cambodia	1189	Kuwait	1510	4 : 0	1972-05-14	Asian Cup
8	79	Paraguay	1596	Uruguay	1986	3 : 0	1929-11-01	Copa América
9	78	Croatia	1873	Germany	2054	3 : 0	1998-07-04	World Cup
9	78	Norway	1535	Great Britain	1865	3 : 1	1920-08-28	Olympic Games
11	77	Uruguay	1785	Brazil	2125	3 : 0	1959-12-12	Copa América
11	77	Chile	1540	Uruguay	1893	3 : 0	1937-01-10	Copa América
13	76	Netherlands	1962	Spain	2088	5 : 1	2014-06-13	World Cup
		United States	1869	Mexico	1771	0 : 5	2009-07-26	Concacaf Gold Cup
		Germany	1851	Norway	1650	0 : 2	1936-08-07	Olympic Games

History

The Elo system, developed by Hungarian-American mathematician Dr. Árpád Élő, is used by FIDE, the international chess federation, to rate chess players, and by the European Go Federation, to rate Go players. In 1997 Bob Runyan adapted the Elo rating system to international football and posted the results on the Internet. He was also the first maintainer of the World Football Elo Ratings web site, now maintained by Kirill Bulygin.

Overview

The Elo system was adapted for football by adding a weighting for the kind of match, an adjustment for the home team advantage, and an adjustment for goal difference in the match result.

The factors taken into consideration when calculating a team's new rating are:

The team's old rating
The considered weight of the tournament
The goal difference of the match
The result of the match
The expected result of the match

The different weights of competitions in descending order are:

World Cup Finals
Continental championships finals and Intercontinental tournaments
World Cup and Continental championship qualifiers
All other tournaments
Friendly matches

The single difference is Elo giving a special treatment for minor tournaments, while FIFA consider them as friendly matches.

These ratings take into account all international "A" matches for which results could be found. Ratings tend to converge on a team's true strength relative to its competitors after about 30 matches. Ratings for teams with fewer than 30 matches should be considered provisional. Match data are primarily from International Football 1872 – present web site.

Basic calculation principles

The basic principle behind the Elo ratings is only in its simplest form similar to that of a league, unlike the FIFA tables who effectively run their table as a normal league table, but with weightings to take into account the other factors, the Elo system has its one formula which takes into account the factors mentioned above. There is no first step as in the FIFA system where a team immediately receives points for the result, there is just one calculation in the Elo system.

The ratings are based on the following formulae:

$R_n = R_o + K G (W - W_e)$

$P = K G (W - W_e)$

Where;


$R_n$	= The new team rating
$R_o$	= The old team rating
$K$	= Weight index regarding the tournament of the match
$G$	= A number from the index of goal differences
$W$	= The result of the match
$W_e$	= The expected result
$P$	= Points Change

The number of Points Change is rounded to the nearest integer before updating the team rating.

Status of match

The status of the match is incorporated by the use of a weight constant. The weight is a constant regarding the "weight" or importance of a match, defined by which tournament the match is in, they are as follows;

Tournament or Match type	Index (K)
World Cup	60
Continental Championship and Intercontinental Tournaments	50
World Cup and Continental qualifiers and major tournaments	40
All other tournaments	30
Friendly Matches	20

Number of goals

The number of goals is taken into account by use of a goal difference index. G is increased by half if a game is won by two goals, and if the game is won by three or more goals by a number decided through the appropriate calculation shown below;

If the game is a draw or is won by one goal

G = 1

If the game is won by two goals

G = \frac{3}{2}

If the game is won by three or more goals

Where N is the goal difference

G = \frac{11+N}{8}

Table of examples:

Goal Difference	Coefficient of K (G)
0	1
+1	1
+2	1.5
+3	1.75
+4	1.875
+5	2
+6	2.125
+7	2.25
+8	2.375
+9	2.5
+10	2.625

Result of match

W is the result of the game (1 for a win, 0.5 for a draw, and 0 for a loss). This also holds when a game is won or lost on extra time. If the match is decided on penalties, however, the result of the game is considered a draw (W = 0.5).

Expected result of match

W_e is the expected result (win expectancy with a draw counting as 0.5) from the following formula:

W_e = \frac{1}{10^{-dr/400} + 1}

where dr equals the difference in ratings plus 100 points for a team playing at home. So dr of 0 gives 0.5, of 120 gives 0.666 to the higher-ranked team and 0.334 to the lower, and of 800 gives 0.99 to the higher-ranked team and 0.01 to the lower.

Examples

The same examples have been used on the FIFA World Rankings for a fair comparison. Some actual examples should help to make the methods of calculation clear. In this instance it is assumed that three teams of different strengths are involved in a small friendly tournament on neutral territory.

Before the tournament the three teams have the following point totals.

Team	Points
A	630
B	500
C	480

Thus, team A is by some distance the highest ranked of the three: The following table shows the points allocations based on three possible outcomes of the match between the strongest team A, and the somewhat weaker team B:

Example 1

Team A versus Team B (Team A stronger than Team B)

	Team A	Team B	Team A	Team B	Team A	Team B
Score	3 : 1		1 : 3		2 : 2
$K$	20	20	20	20	20	20
$G$	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	1	1
$W$	1	0	0	1	0.5	0.5
$W_e$	0.679	0.321	0.679	0.321	0.679	0.321
Total (P)	+9.63	-9.63	-20.37	+20.37	-3.58	+3.58

Example 2

Team B versus Team C (both teams approximately the same strength)

When the difference in strength between the two teams is less, so also will be the difference in points allocation. The following table illustrates how the points would be divided following the same results as above, but with two roughly equally ranked teams, B and C, being involved:

	Team B	Team C	Team B	Team C	Team B	Team C
Score	3 : 1		1 : 3		2 : 2
$K$	20	20	20	20	20	20
$G$	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	1	1
$W$	1	0	0	1	0.5	0.5
$W_e$	0.529	0.471	0.529	0.471	0.529	0.471
Total (P)	+14.13	-14.13	-15.87	+15.87	-0.58	+0.58

Note that Team B loses more ranking points by losing to Team C than by losing to Team A.

Notes and references

↑ "World Rankings". Elo. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
↑ "The World Football Elo Rating System". Eloratings.net. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
↑ J. Lasek, Z. Szlávik and S. Bhulai (2013), The predictive power of ranking systems in association football, Int. J. Applied Pattern Recognition1: 27-46.
↑ World Football Elo Ratings Elo.net. Retrieved: 2015-03-28.
↑ "FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking" (Press release). FIFA. 17 July 2014. Retrieved 2015-01-27.
↑ Arpad E. Elo, The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, Arco, 1978. ISBN 0-668-04721-6.
↑ Arpad Elo, Chess Life, 1962.
↑ About the Chessmetrics Rating System, by Jeff Sonas
↑ Representing West Germany from 1949 to 1990
↑ Combined record of the USSR (1970-1992), the CIS (1992), and Russia national football teams (1992-present)
↑ Combined record of the Czechoslovakian (1970-1992) and Czech national football teams (1993-present)
↑ Combined record of Yugoslavia (1970-1992), Serbia and Montenegro (1994-2006) and Serbia national football teams (2006-present)
↑ In the 1940s, most national teams did not play games until after the end of World War II, making comparison of countries for this decade weak. For example, Mexico did not play any matches between Feb 1938 and July 1947, so that the average over the decade mostly reflects the single Elo rating achieved in February 1938
↑ (up to 1 May 2015)
↑ Combined record of Yugoslavia (1990-1992) and FR of Yugoslavia (1994-1999)
↑ Combined record of Czechoslovakia (1990-1992) and Czech national football teams (1993-1999)
↑ Combined record of the USSR (1990-1992), the CIS (1992), and Russia national football teams (1992-1999)
↑ "Germany to play Argentina in September friendly". The Star. 21 March 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
↑ Source: World Football Elo Ratings: Biggest Upsets. Only matches between teams with at least 30 earlier matches each are included to allow a stabilized Elo rating. These criteria just disqualify the 4:0 Turkey:China match at the 1948 Olympic Games and the 7:1 Italy:Spain match at the 1928 Olympic Games, each with an 89 point exchange.
↑ In those terms, most surprising may have been the 2:1 win of Luxembourg (Elo rating 1005) over Switzerland (ER 1767) in a World Cup qualification match in September 2008 (a 762 point difference). In another World Cup qualifier in October 2004 Liechtenstein (ER 1032) held the 839 points higher rated Portuguese team (ER 1871) to a 2:2 draw.

External links

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See also International women's football