In the 1st of December 2017, the whole planet had its eyes on the 2018 World Cup rule hosted in Russia. 32 teams tested their luck. Everyone's chilling in the room until this happened. Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Iran. It's common in group stages to have something we call the group of DEF. Not a single football nation wants to be included in it, and in consequence you get at least another group with no real contender. But did you know that luck is not the only factor behind the World Cup rule? What if I told you that there's a hole, a problem in the system that is already being exploited to increase the national team's chances to face weaker teams during international tournaments like the World Cup? I'd know, it's not about hot balls and cold refrigerated balls. That's ancient history. In order to understand how this works, you need to know how FIFA ranks work. The FIFA uses a certain formula. The magic mathematical formula used by FIFA is as follows. P equals M by I by T by C by 100. M is the points a team wins after the end of a specific game. If it's a win, they get three points. If it's a draw, they get one point. And if it's a loss, it's zero points. Come on. I is the importance of a match. Basically, the World Cup will earn more points than a friendly game. T is the strength of the opponent. A match versus France or Brazil is more valuable than one with Moldova or Angola. And finally, C is the strength of the Confederation. When calculating international matches, a team that belongs to UEFA is regarded as more valuable than one from the CAF or the Commable. I know, this is a lot of information. That's why I'm giving you some examples to facilitate the understanding. For example, the friendly game between Argentina in September of 2006, it ended with Brazil winning by three goals to NIL. Now, let's use FIFA's magical formula to calculate how much Brazil won. The sum of points is 3 by 1 by 1.97 by 0.98 by 100. That's 579 points for Brazil. Now, let's compare a tournament game to a friendly one. It's September 3rd of 2017. Spain wins by three goals to NIL versus Italy and European World Cup qualifications. Using the formula, Spain got 1374 points. Six months later, Spain faces off with Argentina in March 27th of 2018. The Spaniards summed their opponents with 6-1. Because it's a friendly game, they only got 582 points. Spain scored more goals against a better rank team, but they got less points. FIFA ranks nations based on the matches that were played in the last 12 months. So, if a team plays 10 games, they take the sum of points earned and they divide it by the number of games. Whether it's a friendly or an official match. Well, this is the problem. By putting the total number of games in the denominator, we act as if an official game has the same value as a friendly, which is not the case. The maximum amount of points you can earn in a friendly game is 600 points. It's 1500 points in a qualification match and it's 2400 points in the World Cup, 4 times more than a friendly. This might seem normal, but I'll go a step further and make an easy peasy analogy just for you, just so that you understand how bad this is. Let's say you're in high school. For some reason, exams are 100 points and quizzes are 50 points. And let's also say that your school combines both quizzes and exams in your final year's score. But luckily for you, you excel at every freaking test. And you always get the full score. Now, if you had five exams and five quizzes throughout the year, how much is your final score using FIFA's logic? A 100 by 5 plus 50 by 5 divided by the total number of exams, which is 10, will equal 75. Wait, what? It doesn't make sense. In the day of the 2018 World Cup draw, Spain was ranked eighth, which means they were in part two. What if I told you that Poland was the cause? Since the year before the World Cup drew, Poland chose to only play one friendly game out of eight. And because FIFA gives more importance to official games, Poland went from the 15th place to the sixth place. If we compare the results of both Spain and Poland in that same time period, we find that Spain won more official games, but they ended up lower in rankings because they also played more friendly. It's no coincidence. It's not that Poland had no idea about this. They absolutely did. After the ceremony in Russia and before the beginning of the World Cup, in those eight months, they played six friendly games. Six times more friendly than they had 18 months before. In consequence, they went down from sixth place to the tenth place. Spain's chances were dead even before the World Cup drew. And Poland returned to their home with a favorable group and a big smile on their faces. However, karma always finds its way. In the 2018 World Cup, Poland finished last of their group after losing twice. Trying to play the smart game outside the pitch to maybe end up in a favorable position was a dumb decision. Poland does not have players comparable to France, Belgium or Brazil. The only way for them to have a good chance at the World Cup is to prepare for many years and play as much games as possible in order to build a competitive team. Poland might do it again for the next World Cup or maybe another nation will try to replicate it. That's why many football enthusiasts believe that the current FIFA system needs to be changed something more just. Several systems have been suggested. For example, the L.O. ratings. It takes goal-differentials and home field advantage into account. And instead of just accumulating points, the winner of a game takes points from the loser. Example, if Germany wins against France, they snatch points from them. The current FIFA system needs change. With today's system, a World Cup host will always dramatically go down in rankings after having too many friendlies. Brazil, South Africa, Germany and even Russia have all experienced this issue. A team will get more points by winning against the 28th ranked Slovakia than winning against the 23rd ranked Senegal. I know it is dumb, it is weird and FIFA doesn't care. Thanks for the immense support lately. We're close to 40,000 people, I'm very grateful and I appreciate the support. Thanks for watching and until next time.