The Shot
Premier Ranking of national teams
The premier ranking is based
on all top results of the past in African Nations Cup and World Cup with
a considerable emphasizing weight index on the recency of the event.
| Nigeria |
2162 |
| Cameroon |
1992 |
| Egypt |
1266 |
| Ghana |
1054 |
| Morocco |
976 |
| South Africa |
944 |
| Tunisia |
900 |
| Algeria |
896 |
| Côte d'Ivoire |
714 |
| Zambia |
694 |
| DRC or Zaire* |
592 |
| Senegal |
296 |
| Sudan |
248 |
| Congo** |
212 |
| Mali |
200 |
| Ethiopia |
180 |
| Uganda |
160 |
| Guinea |
120 |
| Libya |
108 |
| Burkina Faso |
52 |
*DR Congo, includes the results
for the same country as 'Zaire', 'Congo-Kinshasa'
**Congo-Brazzaville
The Shot 6-Year-Index
a kind of six year statistics,
until 2000 based on the same pattern as the ranking above, but results
that are 6 years old drop out.
This means that always three
editions of the Nations Cup count for it.
Leaders until 1965: Egypt
1965-1973: Ghana
1974-1979: Zaire
1980: Nigeria
1982: Ghana
1984: Algeria
1986-1992: Cameroon
1994-1999: Nigeria
since 2000: South Africa
It has now been replaced
by an algorithm that goes more in depth. Not only that more details of
the results are taken into account, there are even a few bonus points for
success in youth championships and Olympics Games.
| South Africa |
221 |
| Cameroon |
208 |
| Tunisia |
201 |
| Nigeria |
180,5 |
| Egypt |
161 |
| Ghana |
156,5 |
| Morocco |
146,5 |
| Côte d'Ivoire |
103 |
| Zambia |
98 |
| Senegal |
89 |
| DRC or Zaire |
86 |
| Algeria |
86 |
| Burkina Faso |
72 |
| Angola |
56,5 |
| Liberia |
53 |
| Guinea |
46 |
| Togo |
45 |
| Congo |
32 |
| Mali |
29 |
| Gabon |
28 |
| Sudan |
24 |
| Zimbabwe |
21 |
| Sierra Leone |
18 |
| Kenya |
18 |
| Mozambique |
13 |
| Namibia |
9 |
| Ethiopia |
6 |
FIFA Rankings
The FIFA rankings are no
appropriate tool to assess African Football. It is not possible for most African countries
to play a sufficient number of intercontinental matches or friendly matches. Which European country travels for friendly
away games to Nigeria? And innerafrican matches become multiplied by a lower factor because
of the lower achievements of Africans on World level. This leads to the
fact that in World rankings usually there is a bunch of Europeans and South
Americans leading before much behind a bunch of Africans is placed.
It is also not good to compare
African teams to each other as they have much different structural and
financial means to establish the right kind of matches which boost teams
in the rankings. So it is no miracle that Tunisia is leading here while
Nigeria often find themselves on a level like Iceland.
Alternatives
An alternative is the cybereagles.co.uk
poll system which has been designed after the US college football poll
system and has clear guidelines so that the results can be considered very
seriously.
But here we have a particular
disadvantage: Most voters come from a similar perspective, gaining informations
from similar sources and have a similar angle of view, especially adding
to it this is a Nigerian, not an all-African site.
Another alternative is the
assessment by Sportsbooks before and during tournaments. They calculate
a probability for a team to win a tournament which says something about
their performance in the time before minus several reasons why this performance
might have not reflected their real strength. Wrong odds can be very costly,
so the assessments are done carefully. But those odds apply only to big
tournaments.
> see
2002 odds and how they change throughout the Nations Cup. |
