somethings always rubbed me the wrong way about the "okay we've dated for 5 months I can just do gross shit now" comedy that's very prevalent in the millennial circle
🚨 JUST IN: 🇮🇷
Reporter: “Are you rebuilding nuclear weapons?”
Abbas Araghchi: “No.”
Reporter: “Will you accept President Trump's request for inspections?”
Araghchi: “Of course—if we can send our team to Israel to see whether they have nuclear weapons. If Israel has them, then Iran should have them too.”
🇫🇷🇪🇸🇦🇷🏴 have gone so far ahead of everyone else in the rankings that they are basically guaranteed Pot 1 in all FIFA competitions (qualifiers and majors) for as long as FIFA keeps their rule of no points lost in knockout stages of major competitions.
Contrary to the true nature of an Elo-type system, this rule causes inflation of points at the top of the distribution (causing Professor Arpad Elo to turn in his grave).
It would require a series of meltdowns in qualifiers and/or group stages of major competitions for them to even come to a situation that they need to worry about their seeding.
Given that it gets easier and easier to qualify for the major tournaments and easier to get past the group stage due to constant expansions, the advantage is becoming de facto insurmountable.
What happens is you end up with a calcified ranking of teams with very little variability at the top, making it increasingly difficult for any new nation to climb to the higher spheres if they really deserve it on the pitch.
After enough time has passed the end result is the ranking based almost entirely on historical legacy of success, instead of a healthy combination of history and recent form.
Perhaps that was the idea from the start.