The FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking includes the national A-teams of all FIFA member associations who play international matches. Not included in the calculation are matches played by junior teams or other representative national sides (such as the women's national team).
Taken into consideration for the ranking are all international-A match results over a time span of the last eight years:
- World Cup finals matches (England & USA in quarterfinals)
- World Cup preliminary matches
- FIFA Confederations Cup matches
- Continental championship final matches
- Continental championship preliminary matches
- Friendly matches
The ranking list is produced by a computer program which assigns a team points for every match, according to clearly defined criteria. The factors taken into consideration are:
- Winning, drawing and losing
- Number of goals
- Home or away match
- Importance of the match (multiplication factor)
- Regional strength (multiplication factor)
For each team only the seven best results per year are given full weighting. Results from the past are given progressively less weighting year by year until after eight years they are dropped completely. In this way current success is rated more highly than past results.
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