Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Solomon Islands Soccer

While looking up Solomon Islands' current ranking on the FIFA World Rankings, I came across a very impressive site. People, I could not believe how I never knew of its existence until now. Truly, along with the previously mentioned PlanetWorldCup.com, this has to be the next best site - at least where Solomon Islands soccer is concerned.

Well, before that, let's look at where we stand. Currently, we're on the 156th spot. That's a few place below New Zealand and Fiji who are both placed 131 and 149 respectively. Hang on, didn't we beat Fiji in the recent 2006 Qualifying Series? Yes we did. But that was 2 years ago. And before that, let's face it, we weren't doing that well compared to the other Pacific countries like Fiji and Tahiti. Don't believe me? Just wait 'till you see the statistics.

Okay, let's talk a bit about the FIFA Rankings. Basically, the FIFA Ranking system has been devised in such a way that it rewards teams who play regular internationals and get good results in the process. It's actually more complicated than that but that's my summary of it all. Solomon Islands who did not play a single international since losing to Australia 2-1 in 2005 dropped a few places while Fiji managed to get two wins against India and move ahead a few places. See where I'm getting at? If we could've played one game, just one, a win would have put us ahead of Fiji. What's the lesson here? It doesn't hurt to play at least once a year. Sure it costs money and time, but we've got SIFF and I'm sure they could work something out. Perhaps an annual international friendly with neighbours PNG or Vanuatu. Seriously, they need the games as much as we do.

Now leaving the FIFA Rankings behind, you might be surprised to hear that there is an alternative world ranking system called the World Football Elo Ratings. Honestly, I don't know what to make of it but I understand it's a bit less complicated than the FIFA system of calculation. I won't go into the details but basically, it (both the FIFA and Elo system) takes into account all the factors like who you're playing against, where you're playing, whether it's a friendly or a competition, etc. along with the actual results from the game. All these variables are put into a special formula and what comes out of it determines whether points are added or subtracted from your previous points total. What really separates these two systems is that FIFA's rankings are representative of the teams' performance over 8 years whereas Elo's rankings are more representative of the teams' performance over the last 30 games. So which one is better? I can't really say. If you want to see which teams are currently doing well, look at Elo. If you want to see where they truly stand, look at FIFA's.

In case you're wondering about the Elo rankings, we're ranked 107, just one place above Fiji.

Now back to the site that I'm so impressed with. Actually, there's more than one but that one site lead me to the other sites so credit where credit's due. The site I'm talking about is none other than EloRatings.net. I think that was pretty obvious. Well, what's so special about it? Here's why: All of Solomon Islands' games listed in chronological order from our first game to our last game. For a more in-depth guide, check this out at rsssf.com. And finally, check out World-Results.net to see every tournament covered. Awesome don't you think?

PS. My knowledge on the FIFA and Elo ranking systems are limited at best. They're probably too complicated for me to understand fully so take all I've said regarding both of them with a grain of salt.