The latest FIFA World Rankings were released yesterday, with minimal change at the top. Germany remained in first after regaining the title in July, there was no change in the top 6, and Spain and Peru climbed into the top ten, at the expense of Switzerland and Colombia.
Peru being in the top ten might come as a surprise, considering that there is a chance of them failing to make the World Cup. Missing automatic qualification by a point, they now need to beat New Zealand across two legs in Wellington and Lima.
While they may qualify, Chile (ninth in the world) won’t, who finished sixth in South America, goal difference behind the Peruvians. At the other end of the scale, Saudi Arabia (63rd) has qualified, finishing second in one of the Asian groups.
As unfair as this seems, it’s nothing unusual for a team ranked that high to miss the World Cup, or a team ranked that low to make it. Indeed, there’s precedent for both.
Excluding the 1994 World Cup, there have been five tournaments held in the era of the FIFA World Rankings, with 160 teams qualifying in that time. In a perfect world, the top 32 teams in the world would have qualified each time – every team from 1 to 32 in the world rankings would be there, and none of the teams outside would.
Real life is not perfect, so in the last five tournaments, 43 (27%) of teams in the top 32 have missed the World Cup.1 Out of those teams, four of them were in the top ten. In addition to Chile for 2018, Croatia in 2010 (8th), the Netherlands in 2002 (8th), and Colombia in 2002 (5th) all missed, but the all time underachievement award goes to the Czech Republic, who missed the 1998 World Cup despite being ranked fourth in the world at the time.
On the flipside of things, the 2010 World Cup had the three lowest ranked teams to ever qualify. New Zealand were 83rd in the world, South Africa were 85th (and hosts), and North Korea managed to qualify for the World Cup from 91st.2
Chile do have an achievement of their own, though, becoming the first country to miss the World Cup from 9th. The other first time ranking misses are 14th (Wales) and 24th (Slovakia), with pressure on Peru (10th) and Denmark (19th) to avoid it in their playoffs.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, are the first 63rd ranked team to make a World Cup, and Russia the first 65th. Ivory Coast will be the first from 61st if they beat Morocco, Honduras the first from 69th if they beat Australia, and New Zealand would get the phenomenal achievement of qualifying from 122nd if they beat Peru.
But for my part, the impetus is on Sweden. No team from 25th has ever made the World Cup, and Sweden currently sit in that position. If they win their playoff, then every ranking from 1st to 40th will have made a World Cup at least once. So come on, Sweden, make us stat nerds proud.
1The rankings are taken from the ones used for the World Cup draw.
2They, unsurprisingly, lost their games 1-2, 0-7, and 0-3.
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