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Sikhumbuzo Moyo
THE Warriors’ recent triumph in the Africa Nations Championship qualifiers in which they shocked former Nations Cup holders Zambia, has seen them rise five places on the Fifa/Coca-Cola World Rankings.Zimbabwe are now ranked 101, up from 106 on the world stage while storming into the top 30 on the African continent, landing at number 27 from 32 last month.
Under Ian Gorowa, the Zimbabwe Warriors beat Mauritius 3-0 away before settling for a 1-1 draw at Rufaro Stadium in the first round of the Chan qualifiers. Their next opponents were mighty Zambia, a team that beat them 2-0 in the Cosafa Castle Cup final in Zambia. The first leg ended 0-0 in Harare before Charles Sibanda’s solitary strike in the second leg at Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in Ndola presented the team with a ticket to their third Chan finals.
On Tuesday the Warriors beat South Africa 2-1 in an international friendly with goals coming from Knowledge Musona and Cuthbert Malajila while Bafana Bafana pulled one back through their stand-in captain Bernard Parker.
The defeat to Zimbabwe, saw Zambia, ranked 10th before the latest update from the Fifa headquarters in Switzerland, dropping four places to 14th in Africa and 81 on the world stage.
Warriors’ manager Sharrif Mussa attributed the rise on the rankings to team work and urged everyone to keep on rallying behind the boys.
“All parties involved should take credit for our rise on the rankings. The whole objective is to take this team back to where it belongs. We used to be the regional and continental powerhouse and for us to regain this status we need everyone’s support. What is pleasing is that from the motherbody,
Zifa to the players, the support is now showing and we want to say let’s all keep the spirit up,” said Mussa.
Continental powerhouse Cote d’Ivoire remained the best ranked African country on the world stage, sitting at 19, followed by Ghana who are ranked 24.
There was no movement from the world’s top 12 countries with Spain still the best team in the world, followed by Germany.
Calculation of points for a single match
The number of points that can be won in a match depends on the following factors:
- Was the match won or drawn? (M)
- How important was the match (ranging from a friendly match to a Fifa World Cup match)? (I)
- 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 (see following page). Their values are as follows:
Uefa/CONMEBOL 1.00 Concacaf 0.88
AFC/Caf 0.86 OFC 0.85
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