The World Football Elo Ratings is a ranking system for men's national association football teams that is published by the website eloratings.net. It is based on the Elo rating system but includes modifications to take various football-specific variables into account, like the margin of victory, importance of a match, and home field advantage. Other implementations of the Elo rating system are possible and there is no single nor any official Elo ranking for football teams.
Since being developed, the Elo rankings have been found to have the highest predictive capability for football matches.[1] FIFA's official rankings, both the FIFA World Rankings for men and the FIFA Women's World Rankings are based on a modified version of the Elo formula, the men's rankings having switched away from FIFA's own system for matches played since June 2018.[2]
The following table shows the top 100 teams in the World Football Elo Ratings as they were on 17 November 2023, using data from the World Football Elo Ratings web site.[3]
Each national team's FIFA World Ranking is shown as per the latest release on 26 October 2023.[4]
The following is the list of nations who have achieved the number-one position in the World Football Elo Ratings since the first international match in 1872:[5]
^Northern Cyprus is not a member of FIFA and is not included in the FIFA Rankings. Also, the team has played only 17 matches against other Elo-ranked teams, so its Elo rating is provisional.
^Iraqi Kurdistan is not a member of FIFA and is not included in the FIFA Rankings. Also, the team has played only 4 matches against other Elo-ranked teams, so its Elo rating is provisional.
^Martinique is also not a member of FIFA, so is not included in the FIFA Rankings.
^Kuwait is ranked significantly lower in the FIFA Ranking partly because they were inactive from October 2015 to December 2017 due to their suspension from FIFA. While this caused their FIFA Ranking to fall dramatically under the former system, their World Football Elo Rating remained the same.
^ abcNumber-one position reached at / after first match
The following is a list of national football teams ranked by the highest Elo rating they ever reached.[7] The table also includes the highest ranking as well as the lowest rating and ranking reached by each nation. The team that has achieved the highest rank in each confederation is shown in color.
^The ranking in parentheses is that at the time the highest rating was reached.
^ abThe date given is when the highest or lowest rating was first reached. Cite error: The named reference "ratarankdate" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
^The ranking in parentheses is that at the time the lowest rating was reached.
^Switzerland had only played 1 match when reaching its lowest ratings
^ abThe combined Ireland national football team was in 4th place from its first match in 1882 to 1902, in a period that only 4 teams were in the rankings. It reached a low ratings of 1237 on 29 March 1890.
^Wales was in 3rd place from its first match in 1876 to 1902, in a period that only 3 to 4 teams were in the rankings.
This table is a list of the national teams with the highest average Elo score since 1 January 1970, i.e. over approximately the last half century.[11] 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. Only those teams are displayed that started playing before 1970 and played the entire period without a 5-year or longer interruption. Some excluded strong national football teams, like East-Germany and Croatia, appear in the decades tables below.
The tables below shows the teams with the best average Elo score per decade (1 Jan XXX0 - 31 Dec XXX9). Only those teams are displayed that had played before the start of the decade and played at least ten games in the decade, and only teams which had already played at least one game before or on the start date are displayed.
The eloratings.net website presents the average ratings since the first international match of each team. Such averages can not really be compared to each other, as they represent strengths over different periods and in different pools. For example, they represent 151 years of matches for Scotland (34 years of which in a pool of 3 or 4 British nations only), 103 years for Spain, 32 years for Ukraine, and 17 years for Montenegro. For Croatia and Slovakia the average is dominated by the single rating during the 50 years between the few games played between 1940 and 1943 and the rebirth of the countries in the 1990s. Likewise, South Africa's average is mostly determined by the 44 matches (of a 417 total in 2018) played in the 86 years before it rejoined FIFA in 1992.
A list of the 25 friendly and qualifying matches between teams with the highest combined Elo ratings (the nations' points before the matches are given)
This is a list of matches with the biggest point exchange.[25] Since the importance of the match, the goal differential and the perceived home team advantage are factored in the exchange, these are not necessarily the most surprising wins as expressed by the difference in Elo rating.[a] The nations' points before the matches are given.
*The initial ratings may be partially responsible for the high point exchange. The national teams of China, Egypt, Russia, and South Korea had played only 18, 3, 2, and 18 international matches before their respective upsets. China had only yet played against East Asian teams.
^In those terms, most surprising may have been the 2:1 win of Luxembourg (Elo rating 1036) over Switzerland (ER 1794) in a World Cup qualification match in September 2008 (a 758-point difference). In another World Cup qualifier in October 2004 Liechtenstein (ER 1049) held the 853 points higher rated Portuguese team (ER 1902) to a 2:2 draw.
^Italy, the UEFA Euro 2000 runners-up, declined to take part as did Germany, the 2002 FIFA World Cup runners-up. So did Spain, who were ranked second in the FIFA World Rankings at the time. They were replaced by Turkey, who came third in the 2002 FIFA World Cup
^Netherlands (1974 and 1978 World Cup runners-up) replacing England, who declined the invitation due to an already crowded fixture list
The Elo system, developed by Hungarian-American mathematician 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.[46] He was also the first maintainer of the World Football Elo Ratings web site, currently maintained by Kirill Bulygin. Other implementations of the Elo rating system are possible/[1]
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 ratings consider all official international matches for which results are available. Ratings tend to converge on a team's true strength relative to its competitors after about 30 matches.[47] Ratings for teams with fewer than 30 matches are considered provisional.
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 (2006–2018 system) performed poorly.[1]
The FIFA World Rankings is the official national teams rating system used by the international governing body of football. The FIFA Women's World Rankings system has used a modified version of the Elo formula since 2003. In June 2018, the FIFA ranking switched to an Elo-based ranking as well, starting from the current FIFA rating points.[48] The major difference between the World Football Elo Rating and the new men's FIFA rating system is that the latter does not consider goal differential and counts a penalty shoot-out as a win/loss rather than a draw; thus, a 7:0 blowout is considered equal to a 7:6 penalty shoot-out win (neither method distinguishes a win in extra time from a win in regular time). The FIFA method is also less sensitive to the difference in ratings and more sensitive to match status.[49] Finally, World Football Elo Ratings considers all official international matches for which results are available, including those involving "unaffiliated" teams that are not a member of FIFA.
The status of the match is incorporated by the use of a weight constant. The constant reflects the importance of a match, which, in turn, is determined entirely by which tournament the match is in; the weight constant for each major tournament is:
The FIFA adaptation of the Elo rating will feature 8 weights, with the knockout stages in the World Cup weighing 12x more than some friendly matches.[49]
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).
We is the expected result (win expectancy with a draw counting as 0.5) from the following formula:
where dr equals the difference in ratings (add 100 points for the home team). 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.
The FIFA adaptation of the Elo rating does not incorporate a home team advantage and has a larger divisor in the formula (600 vs 400), making the points exchange less sensitive to the rating difference of two teams.[49]
The same example of a three-team friendly tournament on neutral territory is used as on the FIFA World Rankings page. Beforehand team A had a rating of 630 points, team B 500 points, and teams C 480 points. The first table shows the points allocations based on three possible outcomes of the match between the strongest team A, and the somewhat weaker team B:
Team A
Team B
Team A
Team B
Team A
Team B
Score
3–1
1–3
2–2
20
20
20
20
20
20
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
1
1
1
0
0
1
0.5
0.5
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
When the difference in strength between the two teams is less, so also will be the difference in points allocation. The next 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
20
20
20
20
20
20
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
1
1
1
0
0
1
0.5
0.5
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
Team B drops fewer points by losing to Team C, which has shown about the same strength, than by losing to Team A, which has been considerably better than Team B.
List of footballers with more goals than caps[edit]
In top-level football competitions, almost 210 players have scored more international goals than games they have played for their respective national teams, according to research by the FIFA stats.[citation needed]
William Dickson – one of just two players with highest ratio
Ferenc Deák – scorer with the best ratio in more than 20 games played
Poul Nielsen – scorer with the best ratio in more than 30 games played
Sven Rydell – scorer with the best ratio in more than 40 games played
Sándor Kocsis – scorer with the best ratio in more than 50 games played
Ernst Wilimowski – scorer with the best ratio in a World Cup. He scored 4 goals in his only match played by the Polish national team in the 1934 FIFA World Cup
Player in italics indicates the player is currently active.
^Most sources state he scored two goals,[36][37] with the other given to John McPherson, but contemporary reports state that Rankin scored all three.[38][39]
Footballers with as many goals as their caps[edit]
According to the data provided by the federations, almost 180 players have scored as many goals as the games they have played for their respective national team.
The GalBrEusCat League is a proposed international association football competition to be played in a number of European nations. The double-aim of the GalBrEusCat League to allow national teams of clubs who have been successful in their national competitions to participate in a more competitive league that would be more attractive to fans and television viewers, resulting in higher revenues and the ability to attract more talented players. An Atlantic League would aspire for itself and its clubs to achieve parity with the largest existing national leagues in England, Italy, Germany and Spain.[1]
The GalBrEusCat League is a proposed international association football competition to be played in a number of European nations. GalBrEusCat League is born with the double-aim, on the one hand getting the officiality of the national teams and the Olympic committees to be able to compete in international tournaments and the Olympic Games; on the other hand, allowing clubs who have been successful in their national competitions to participate in a more competitive league that would be more attractive to fans and television viewers, resulting in higher revenues and the ability to attract more talented players. An Atlantic League would aspire for itself and its clubs to achieve parity with the largest existing national leagues in England, Italy, Germany and Spain.
Brazil
England
Germany [c]
Argentina
Spain
France
Hungary
Scotland
Italy
Soviet Union [d]
Uruguay
Netherlands
Belgium
Denmark
Austria
Czech Republic
.svg){kind=small}
Hungary (1st)
Bern
Johannesburg
Great Britain (1st)
Stockholm
Lusail
Brazil (3rd)
Brazil (1st)
Santiago
Brazil (1st)
Mexico City
Poland (3rd)
Kazan
East Rutherford
Lima
Colombia (5th)
Melbourne
Paris
Italy (12th)
Spain (3rd)
Turkey (66th)
China * (30th)
Norway (26th)
Egypt * (25th)
Hungary (3rd)
Fiji (140th)
New Zealand (68th)
Ghana (55th)
Germany (13th)
Russian Empire * (17th)
South Korea * (27th)
South Korea (45th)
Japan (30th)
Philippines (31st)
Trinidad & Tobago (67th)
Port-au-Prince
Paraguay (20th)
Guayaquil
Croatia (10th)
Germany (8th)
Costa Rica (17th)
Guatemala (51st)
Venezuela (105th)
Bolivia (39th)
Spain (15th, 15th)
East Germany (7th, 1926)
(1933.75)
Romania (12th, 18th)
Yugoslavia (10th, 23rd)
Portugal (13th, 2nd)
(1898.5)
(1961)
Zaire (22nd, 31st)
(1890.25)
Bulgaria (27th, 40th)
(1885.4)
Serbia (27th 1784)
Morocco (30th, 16th)
(1894.8)
Ukraine (17th, 1840)
(1957.25)
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Amone Suli
Chacho
Gaspar Rubio
Joris Pibke
Gottfried Fuchs
Zygmunt Steuermann
Harry Johnston
Xhelal Juka
Werner Kaspi
József Mészáros
Sulejman Rebac
John Roach
Peter Hughes
Vsevolod Bobrov
Mikhail Butusov
Jan Košek
Meagen Gunemba
Elijah Lidonde
Zebo Juraeva
Georg Frank
Vũ Công Tuyền
Edward Acquah
Joe Bambrick
Miguel Cruz
Tony Kaltack
Aleksandar Živković
Gleofilo Vlijter
Constantin Frățilă
Nasreddine Akli
Adam Buksa
Erich Leibenguth
Brian Conlon
Ian Edwards
Mundo
Bent Burgess
Sæbjörn Guðmundsson
Béla Krempels
Lars Schybergson
Michalis Shialis
Leopold Vogl
Galicia 
Basque Country
Brittany
Catalonia
Celta de Vigo 
CD Lugo 
SD Ponferradina* 
Stade Brestois 
FC Lorient 
FC Nantes 
Stade Rennais 
Alavés 
Athletic Club 
SD Eibar 
CD Mirandés* 
CA Osasuna _con_palla_e_corona.png){kind=small}
Real Sociedad 
FC Barcelona 
RCD Espanyol 
Girona FC2.png){kind=small}
Deportivo .png){kind=small}
Levante Las Planas
CB Breogán 
CB Coruña 
Obradoiro CAB 
Béliers de Kemper .png){kind=small}
Hermine Nantes 
Baskonia 
Bilbao Basket 
Gipuzkoa Basket 
Iraurgi SB 
BC Andorra 
CB Girona 
Joventut 
Bàsquet Manresa
CB Bembibre* .png){kind=small}
Porta XI Ensino .svg){kind=small}
Landerneau Bretagne 
Nantes Rezé Basket 
Araski AES 
CD Ardoi 
Gernika KESB 
Ibaeta KE 
Uni Girona CB 2.png){kind=small}
AE Sedis_2.png){kind=small}
CB Cangas .png){kind=small}
Club Cisne 
SD Teucro 
HBC Nantes .png){kind=small}
SCDR Anaitasuna 
CD Bidasoa 
Zarautz KE 
Handbol Esplugues 
BM Granollers 
CH Sant Quirze 
UE Sarrià_e_Nero_e_Azzurro_(Strisce).png){kind=small}
Atlético Guardés 
BM Porriño 
Brest Bretagne HB 
Neptunes de Nantes 
SG Rennes MHB 
BM Bera Bera 
Beti-Onak 
Handbol Sant Vicenç.png){kind=small}
Cornish Pirates (academy)* 
Rennes Étudiants CR 
RC Vannes (espoirs) 
Aviron Bayonnais (espoirs) 
Biarritz Olympique (espoirs) 
SA Mauléon .PNG){kind=small}
Ordizia KE .png){kind=small}
USA Perpignan (espoirs) .png){kind=small}
CRAT A Coruña 
AS Bayonne .png){kind=small}
Eibar RT .png){kind=small}
Getxo RT .svg){kind=small}
INEF Barcelona 
CR Sant Cugat
CD Aldebarán 
CV Cabo da Cruz 
Volei Dumbría 
CV Emevé 
Cesson Volley 
Saint-Nazaire VBA 
CV Zalaeta .png){kind=small}
VB Nantes 
Quimper Volley 29 
Rennes EC 
CV Haro* 2.png){kind=small}
CV Sestao 
Atlético San Sebastián 
RC Jolaseta .png){kind=small}
Atlètic Terrassa 
Real Club de Polo .png){kind=small}
Club Egara 
Junior FC 
Línea 22 HC 
Albatros de Brest 
Rennes Cormorans HC 
Hormadi Anglet 
CHH Txuri-Urdin .png){kind=small}
CG Puigcerdà
CH Huarte 
Andorra HG 
ASME Barcelona 
CDW Navarra 2.png){kind=small}
CN Barcelona 
CN Catalunya 
UE Horta 
CE Mediterrani 
CN Molins de Rei .png){kind=small}
CD Rubí 
CN Sant Andreu .png){kind=small}
Leioa WLB 
Druidas BC 
Black Panthers BSC 
Hawks de La Guerche 
Béisbol Navarra 
San Inazio BE 
CB Barcelona 
Catalana Alghero 
CBS Sant Boi 
CB Viladecans
OBB Bizkorrak 
Projecte Softball 
CA Narón 
SG Pontevedra .png){kind=small}
Haute Bretagne 
Nantes Métropole 
Bidasoa AT 
Lleida UA
CA Ría Ferrol 
Bidezabal AT _e_Blu_(Bordato).svg){kind=small}
CA Manresa
CD Burela FS 
A Estrada FS 
Noia FS .svg){kind=small}
Xota FS - Osasuna .png){kind=small}
AE Penya Esplugues 
FS Santa Coloma
Marín Fútsal 
Poio FS .png){kind=small}
Valdetires Ferrol .png){kind=small}
CFS Eixample 
AL Ergué-Gabéric 
Stade Ploufraganais 
CH Caldes 
Girona HC 
Igualada HC .svg){kind=small}
CE Lleida 
CE Noia 
Reus Deportiu 
CP Voltregà2.png){kind=small}
HC Borbolla .png){kind=small}
Nantes Métropole 
Tirán 
Lekittarra 
Orio 
Santurtzi 
Urdaibai 
Zierbana
Arraun Lagunak 
Hibaika 
San Juan (Koxtape) 
Tolosa 
CD Xadrez Ourense 
Gros XT 
Club d'Escacs Barcelona 
Cor de Marina 
CE Platja d'Aro 
CE Valls
CD Amfiv .png){kind=small}
Cornwall Cougars* 
CTH Lannion 
Zuzenak BSR .png){kind=small}
CEM l'Hospitalet