Argentina is on the verge of being jumped as the No. 1 team in the FIFA World Rankings thanks to the result of a charity match.
On Wednesday, Brazil beat Colombia in a friendly 1-0, and with that result the team will jump Argentina once the February edition of the rankings are released. Brazil has not sat atop the rankings since May of 2010.
So you might be wondering how a charity match that only featured players from domestic leagues in South America (no Neymar, no James Rodriguez) helped Brazil leapfrog Lionel Messi and Argentina. Well, before we break down how confusing the FIFA World Rankings are, here are the current top 10 teams as of January:
- Argentina (1,634 points)
- Brazil (1,544)
- Germany (1,433)
- Chile (1,404)
- Belgium (1,368)
- Colombia (1,345)
- France (1,305)
- Portugal (1,229)
- Uruguay (1,187)
- Spain (1,166)
FIFA goes about rating teams with this complex formula:
P (Points) = M (Points for match result) x I (Importance of match) x T (Strength of opponent) x C (Strength of confederation)
Brazil sat 90 points behind Argentina for first. As Globo points out, Brazil earned 582 points with the calculation formula, which is the following: 582 = 3 x 1 x 194 x 1. Three for the win, one for importance (friendly), 194 for strength of opponent (200 minus team ranking -- Colombia sits sixth) and one for strength of confederation.
Of course, this is just further proof how silly the rankings are to begin with. Winning a friendly without your best and most important players in a charity match shouldn't give you that many points, but that is how the flawed system works.
But on the bright side, Brazil wasn't the only winner. The charity match brought in over $300,000 for the families of those Chapecoense players who lost their lives in that tragic plane crash in December. That's a win for all.
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