Statistics are heavily integrated into the lives of soccer punters as they are used as a source of inspiration for picking out bets. Things like head-to-head form, league standings, current form and more are commonly used by punters to try and piece together forecasts for matches.
A sometimes overlooked team strength prediction metric is simple rankings, especially when looking at teams that you may not be too familiar with. Things like Premier League power rankings and the official FIFA rankings can help a lot in piecing together betting options.
User Power Rankings
There are plenty of power rankings available on betting tip sites, which are user-generated and produced at the discretion of the team writing them. They can still be useful indicators about which teams are better than others.
But it is the official rankings, used in-depth research and metrics to produce results like the UEFA national team and club coefficients, that tend to be a little more accurate.
UEFA Coefficients
The UEFA coefficient is a great guide to the current standings of which domestic leagues are best. England for example has the highest current club coefficient on the continent, which quickly indicates that English teams are consistently performing well in competitions like the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.
UEFA lists the strongest clubs in Europe, based on previous performances in their competitions. For example, the 2023 UEFA Champions League winners Manchester City are currently rated as the best team in Europe, ahead of the likes of Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
Reading into those ratings, it can help to narrow down the field of betting options for the teams involved in the current season’s competitions.
A nice thing about these listings is that when a team like Borussia Dortmund comes up against a club like FC Porto or Club Brugge, you can quickly scan through the list of rankings to see what kind of gulf in class is between them.
It is sort of like looking at the current Premier League standings, to see the points and standings difference between two teams ahead of a match. Only the teams in the UEFA coefficient are from multiple domestic leagues.
National Teams
The same can be said of tournaments like the UEFA European Championships and the FIFA World Cup. The UEFA or FIFA team rankings of nations allow for some primary research into the levels of competitiveness between opponents.
Argentina for example, the winners of the last World Cup are top of the FIFA rankings ahead of the strong European trio of France, Belgium and England. So even though Brazil will always be one of the front-runners in World Cup betting, that may not be immediately reflected by their current FIFA standings.
The example of Belgium is also good here to take into consideration. The Red Devils, despite not having won any international tournament ever, have consistently been winning matches still.
They have good past performances of reaching at least the quarter-finals in five of the last six major tournaments they have entered. So that keeps their rankings strong, which could be used in turn for something like a Stage of Elimination wager at the next major tournament.
Reflections in Odds
It’s not surprising that a lot of what you will see in results from team rankings are reflected in odds found in markets like UEFA European Championship winner odds. That’s the basics of good teams being expected to do well.
But the real usefulness of ranking systems can come into play, not only for examining the status of a team of unknown quantity, but also for tracking which teams are on the climb or dropping in the ranking. That’s information that can be used to assess things like an underdog option for your soccer betting.
