I have created a system based on the FIFA systems with some modifications for volleyball. I have taken the last 8 years worth of matches for both the men and women for the following.
1. Olympics
2. FIVB World Championships
3. World League (men)
4. World Grand Prix (women)
5. Grand Champions Cup (once every 4 years)
6. Continental championships
7. World Cup (once every 4 years)
8. Olympic Qualifying (regional and world)
Friendlies are not included because it is almost impossible to find information on them.
I have given points for the following
1. Number of sets won (3,2,1,0)
2. Points ratio Teams can score a higher ratio and still lose the match.
3. Regional strength (matches within an region are given a multiplier of 1, majority of matches are played there; regional strength is based on international matches) number can be below 1 for international matches for one region
4. Rank based on previous results, maximum score of 2 (201-1), lowest score is 1 (teams of 101st and higher rarely play)
Also points are only over a 4 year period, with percentage changes.
For the men there were 2,966 matches from 2002-2009, and my system had correctly predicted the winner on a match basis 74.31% of the time.
For the women there were 2,470 matches from 2002-2009, and my system had correctly predicted the winner on a match basis 78.70% of the time.
My Top 10 for the men after the World League (includes all World Championships Qualifying from 2009) (FIVB Ranking in parenthesis)
1 Brazil (1)
2 Russia (2)
3 Cuba 8
4 USA (3)
5 Serbia (4)
6 Poland (6)
7 Italy (5)
8 Bulgaria (7)
9 Germany (11)
10 Finland (33)
Finland is getting no respect for playing in the World League by the FIVB on an annual basis, same for Cuba
Argentina is 9th in the FIVB ranking, I have them 12th.
China is 10th in the FIVB ranking, I have them 16th. They have not won many matches in the World League the last couple of years.
Women Top 10 before World Grand Prix
1 Brazil (1)
2 China (2)
3 Italy (7)
4 Poland (11)
5 Japan (5)
6 USA (4)
7 Russia (3)
8 Cuba (6)
9 Netherlands 8
10 Germany (9)
Serbia is 10th in the FIVB ranking, I've got them 13th.
For this year, on the men I am at 76.47% right and the women 83.67% right.
FIVB must make some updates regarding the calculation procedure of world ranking system. Especially FİFA's method is the most reasonable one. FIFA consider not only the results of a few amount of formal matches. Their 4 main criterions are:
-Match result (win&lose,straight or tie break sets...)
-Match status(not only world championships,continental championships but also friendly matches and qualifying matches)
-Opposition strength(Obviously, a win against a very highly ranked opponent is a considerably greater achievement than a win against a low-rated opponent, so the strength of the opposing team is a factor.Maybe a strength factor based on team rankings.)
-Regional strength(Also the relative strength of entire confederations must be considered in the calculation in order to prevent the Africa champions to have higher ranking than European championship's 5th ranked team, turkey)
benefits of this ranking would be;
-teams from the weaker region like africa and teams from the strongest region such as europe won't take the same points. So it would be more realistic.
-winning of strong teams like brazil,italy and china won't contribute the same point with winning egypt or costa rica etc.
-Host countries has a great advantages in the present system by joining the tournament without playing any qualifications. But the system which ı suggest won2t give any qualifying matches point so it would lessen of ninequal points of host countries like japan.
-beating an opponent with a clear result and a struggled match would bring different points.
what do you think about this kind of update for world ranking?
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