2 weeks ago
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Ryan O'HanlonOct 15, 2025, 09:39 AM ET
- Ryan O'Hanlon is simply a unit writer for ESPN.com. He's besides the writer of "Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game's Analytics Revolution."
It's the quadrennial question. What's much important for a nationalist team: endowment oregon form?
With the third-to-last planetary interruption earlier the FIFA World Cup upon us, I person immoderate bully news: we really don't request to reply that question. Instead, we're going to run from an alternate premise: What if endowment and signifier are both truly important? At least, that's the thought down the rankings you're astir to work through.
We privation to get a consciousness of wherever each nationalist squad stands up of adjacent summer, truthful we've looked astatine each state that inactive hasn't been eliminated from World Cup contention, and past ranked them by adjacent parts show and results.
As a proxy for talent, this ranking uses the average, estimated transportation worth of each subordinate connected each team's astir caller roster from the tract Transfermarkt. And for results, we'll usage the World Football Elo Ratings -- a strategy that awards oregon subtracts points each clip a squad plays a game, based connected the last scoreline, the determination of the match, the prime of the opponent, and the competitiveness of the match. Then we've normalized those numbers to marque them equivalent, added them up, and produced what you spot below.
There are 88 teams inactive successful contention to vie successful the 2026 World Cup, truthful let's get to ESPN's World Cup tract rankings:
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88. Moldova
It's not lone the summation of 16 much teams that's made World Cup qualifying adjacent much convoluted -- it's the beingness of the Nations League, which gives immoderate teams aggregate paths to qualification, depending connected the federation.
For example, Moldova person mislaid each 5 of their qualifying matches. They've scored 3 goals and conceded 25. Yet, somehow, they could inactive sneak into the UEFA qualification playoff.
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