adminon the world stage and two places on the African continent in the latest Fifa/Coca-Cola World Rankings released by the governing body from their headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, yesterday morning.
Zimbabwe, though, still remain outside the top 100 after starting the year on 103, down from 102 in December while they find themselves the 28th best team on the continent, down from 26 in December.
While there have not been any major matches on the international scene, there have been friendly matches that have been played by countries who are participating in the 29th edition of the African Nations Cup in South Africa which kicks off tomorrow with the hosts taking on debutants, Cape Verde Islands.
Zifa’s decision to turn down an offer by Angola to play an international friendly in South Africa and the subsequent snubbing of other invites from Nigeria and Ghana is largely to blame for the two points drop on the continental rankings.
Fifa now take into consideration all international matches be it competitive or friendly matches.
Zimbabwe’s next opponents on the 2014 World Cup campaign trail, fading seven time Nations Cup winners, Egypt dropped from 41 on the world rankings to 54 and six to 11 in Africa. That fall by the once mighty Pharaohs could give the Warriors’ technical team led by German national Dexter Klaus-Pagels a belief that the Egyptians are not invincible after all.
Zimbabwe travel to Cairo on 22 March to face the Egyptians in a do or die encounter where they will also be chasing their first ever goal in the campaign following a 1-0 home loss to Guinea and a 0-0 draw away to neighbours Mozambique.
Calculation of points for a single match
The number of points that can be won in a match depends on the following factors:
l Was the match won or drawn? (M)
l How important was the match (ranging from a friendly match to a Fifa World Cup match)? (I)
l 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:
M: Points for match result
Teams gain three points for a victory, one point for a draw and zero points for a defeat. In a penalty shoot-out, the winning team gains two points and the losing team gains one point.
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
T: 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 is 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.
C: 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
Examples of countries under Concacaf include United States of America, Mexico and Jamaica; in the OFC there is New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga with giants Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay being some of the countries playing in the Conmebol confederation. Japan, Australia and Korea Republic make up the AFC confederation while England, Spain, Germany are some of the countries under Uefa.
Online Reporter