With so many FIH Hockey Pro League matches taking place in the past few weeks there has been a flurry of movement in the men’s FIH World Rankings.
Matches in Potchefstroom, South Africa; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Bhubaneswar, India have involved eight men’s teams, including new comers to the Pro League, France and South Africa. Since the re-start of the league in February there has been 21 FIH Hockey Pro League matches.
By contrast, there has been less activity in the women’s FIH Hockey Pro League with six teams taking to the pitch and completing 11 matches.
Unsurprisingly, this means less movement in the women’s FIH World Rankings, with Netherlands still sitting at the top on 3115.356 points, some way ahead of nearest rivals Argentina who have 2610.650 points.
Australia (2434.048), England (2384.971) and Germany (2226.153) are next in the rankings with Belgium in seventh position, New Zealand eighth, India ninth and Japan making up the top 10.
In the men’s World Rankings, Netherlands and France are the main beneficiaries of the recent FIH Hockey Pro league adventures. While Australia continue to lead the table on 2642.258 points, and Belgium continue to be in second place on 2563.486, Netherlands has changed place with India, courtesy of three wins and a draw (with a shoot-out bonus point) in the recent campaign in South Africa.
The results mean Netherlands has 2265.707 points and India are on 2140.110. The table then unfolds thus: Germany are in fifth place, ahead of Argentina in sixth. These two teams have leap-frogged England who are in seventh, ahead of New Zealand (8) and Spain (9). The other big mover is France who now enter the top 10 for the first time in recent years, thanks to two wins and a draw in South Africa.
To see the complete FIH World Rankings, click here.
The rankings calculations model that FIH introduced on 1st January 2020 moved away from the previous tournament-based rankings system to a dynamic, match-based method where opposing teams exchange points in official, FIH sanctioned games. The number of points exchanged depends on the result of the match, the relative ranking of the teams and the importance of the match. More information about the new rankings model can be found below.
How the FIH World Rankings work:
The number of points exchanged depends on the result of the match, the relative ranking of the teams and the importance of the match.
FIH World Rankings explained:
- Based on the Elo rating system, which is used as the basis of many other sports ranking systems
- When two nations play against each other, a number of ranking points are exchanged between them
- In every match, the number of points gained by one team is exactly matched by the number of points lost by the other
- Teams will win more points for beating teams ranked above them, and therefore teams will lose more points for losing to a team ranked below them
- Teams will win less points for beating teams ranked below them, and therefore teams will lose less points for losing to a team ranked above them
- If a draw occurs, the lower ranked team will gain a small number of points and the higher ranked team will lose the same number of points
- The number of points exchanged is dependent on the result of the match (win, lose, shootout win/loss or draw), the importance of the match (part of a major tournament, or a test series for example), and the relative difference in ranking points between the teams before the match.
More details about the formula used in the algorithm, weightings of matches and other factors can be found HERE together with a Frequently Asked Questions document HERE.
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