England's record in the World Cup : the stats

in every World Cup tournament since 1950, if you award each team points based on how they perform and how far they get in the tournament, the results may be quite surprising, to some people.

qualifying - 1 point

last 16 - 2 points

last 8 - 3 points

last 4 - 4 points

runners-up - 5 points

champions - 6.5 points

so last time in 2014, Germany got 6.5 points for winning. Argentina, got 5 points for getting to the final. Semi finalists Brazil and the Netherlands, got 4 points. And so on. England who did not get out of their group in 2014, got 1 point just for qualifying, like 15 other teams got 1 point.

if you go back and back and back and award points on this basis for every tournament back to 1950, these are the top 15 best performing teams, in the history of the World Cup, up until 2014 :

1. Germany 69.5 points

2. Brazil 60

3. Italy 37

4. Argentina 36

5. England 32.5

6. France 29.5

7. Spain 28.5

8. Netherlands 27

9. Uruguay 26.5

10. Sweden 23

11. Mexico 20

12. Belgium 19

13. Russia 16

14. Yugoslavia 15

15. Bulgaria 14

these rankings are just up to 2014, so they have already changed slightly and may well change some more. With Italy and the Netherlands not qualifying this year and so scoring 'nul points', Argentina, who added 2 points to their tally, have overtaken Italy to become #3, and Uruguay, who stand to add at least 3 points to their tally, have overtaken the Netherlands, to become #8.

The points you're awarding don't reward champions nearly enough - eg Brazil have won the WC 5 times in the period as well as being runners up a couple of times - yet they've less than double the points of England - 1 win and one semi.

champions do get one-and-a-half points more than the losing finalists do, not just one point more, which is the difference in points between losing quarter finalists and semi finalists.

England's score is quite surprisingly high because of their sound history of qualifying for the World Cup, better than anyone in Europe except Germany and Italy and much better than France who have only qualified for two-thirds of World Cups against England's 83%, but also because England are pretty good at getting out the group stage of World Cups especially in the more recent tournaments.

England have got out the group stage in 78% of the World Cups they have qualified for since 1950, whereas France have only got out the group stage in 58% of the World Cups they have qualified for. The Netherlands are now the only team in the world, that have ALWAYS got out of the group stage in modern World Cups that they have qualified for. The Netherlands have a unique 100% record there.

Germany are the only team in Europe with a 100% qualification record since 1950 (although they were banned from the first 1950 tournament). Some of the rest are Italy with 89%, England 83%, Spain 78%, France 66%, Sweden 50%, Netherlands 44%, and Portugal 39%.

Still not enough reward for progress to eg the last 4 as simply getting out of the group - Italy have two WC's, twice beaten finalists and two semis in the same period as Englands 1 win and one semi - and yet are only slightly ahead of us on "points".

Perhaps you need to double the points at each level of progress rather than adding one.

 

Perhaps you need to double the points at each level of progress rather than adding one.

by that I think you mean 1 point for going out in the group stage, 2 points for last 16, 4 points for last 8, 8 points for last four, 16 points for losing finalist, and then 32 points, for the winners.

that's totally ridiculous, considering how many of the knockout matches are decided by penalty shootouts.

by that I think you mean 1 point for going out in the group stage, 2 points for last 16, 4 points for last 8, 8 points for last four, 16 points for losing finalist, and then 32 points, for the winners.

 

that's totally ridiculous, considering how many of the knockout matches are decided by penalty shootouts.

Why? It's better than 2 quarter final appearances being slightly less than winning the competition and more than runners up or 2 last 16's equalling a semi final appearance.

It's making the final and the semi's that people remember more than anything.

Why? It's better than 2 quarter final appearances being slightly less than winning the competition and more than runners up or 2 last 16's equalling a semi final appearance.

 

It's making the final and the semi's that people remember more than anything.

it's not 'slightly less' at all. If a team wins the World Cup twice, they get 13 points. Two quarter final final appearances, and you only get six. It is not an accident that in the whole list, the top 8 (#8 is now Uruguay, not the Netherlands) are the very same 8 teams, that have won the World Cup. Nobody who hasn't won it, is above anybody that has.

the 3 teams that have won the World Cup more than once since 1950, Germany, Brazil, and Italy, are also the top 3 of the list.

the most important thing is not winning anyway. It's qualifying and therefore getting to the final stages and have a chance of winning. The top 5 teams are also the 5 teams that have the best record in qualifying.