SSL ELO Rankings

[Canadice]

ELO History

Prior to the fifth season of the SSL, I posted an article showing the ELO rankings of all teams in the league. More information about ELO can be found there, but in essence the metric is a form of measurement of how good an entity has performed and what their current "ranking" is among their peers. I missed posting an update for S6 (as far as I remember at least) but thought it interesting to look at it again now when we've had two seasons of the promotion and relegation structure. My assumption is that the ELO rankings will show more of the divisional split than previous seasons.

End of season 6 ELO

Maybe this is getting to the destination before going through the journey, but the final ELO rankings prior to the start of S7 is as follows:



Hollywood has really taken off at the top dominating last season and securely winning their second championship by a large margin. Catalunya has worked their way up to become a consistently top performing team alongside Athênai but the distance to Hollywood is vast.

It is not surprising we see the split between the two divisions just below the 1500 mark, which is the starting value every team gets when they enter the league before their first game. What is surprising is that the bottom ranked team from Division 1 was the one team that stayed up while Sydney and Accra were relegated to Division 2.

The following plots have been scoped to only cover S5 and S6.
Division 1 Teams S5 and S6


At the top of the rankings in S6 we see two different stories. Sydney dropping from first to second last while Hollywood's rocket path is just going higher and higher. Athênai and Cairo has risen from the bottom of the D1 teams to securing their place in the top 4. Catalunya and Tokyo have relatively consistently been performing at around 1600 and 1550 ELO respectively.

Division 2 Teams S5 and S6


Last season's D2 teams have a clear lower ELO ranking than the teams in the previous plot, and the one team that sticks out is Montréal jumping around an ELO ranking of around 1350 while the other teams hover around 1450. The close battle for promotion is also clearly shown in this graph with Buenos Aires, Kaapstad, and Paris all being around the same end ELO. Interestingly enough Seoul coming in 5th is the second highest ELO of the teams.

The fall and rise of Inter London is also interesting, dropping to the bottom team in S5 and winning the majority of their matches in S6 eventually winning the division and promotion.

Expectations for S7
It will be interesting to see where the two new expansion teams will fall after a couple of games and where the promoted and relegated teams will change the structure of the ELO rankings with their first couple of games. I expect London to continue on their upwards trajectory, probably getting some wins here and there against the higher ranked D1 teams. Reykjavik (previously Sydney) and Accra will be an added "boost" to the D2 teams if they lose as their high ranking will result in a jump by the winning side. In D1 Hollywood's dominance needs to be broken at some point and there are multiple teams eager to skip ahead in the standings.

[Aleris]

No one is gonna catch Hollywood...lol

[omniscius]

QUOTE (Aleris @ Dec 11 2022, 01:45 PM)

No one is gonna catch Hollywood...lol

Hold my beer

[Canadice]

Updated ELO Rankings for S8

With the conclusion of S7 we saw a whole lot of changes in the ELO ranking of the teams in both Divisions.

Division 2

Starting off the season we had four teams coming it at around 1500 rank, two of them being the expansion teams starting off at the default value. Adowa Accra had the highest ranking at around 1530 recently being relegated from the first division alongside newly rebranded Reykjavik United just above 1500. Buenos Aires, Seoul and Paris were at 1470, 1444, and 1440 rank respectively while Montréal finished the group at around 1350.


The first half of the season saw the top four teams steadily fall down the ranking with Reykjavik being able to hold off until about mid-season when they started the drop to 1400. Romana saw a stint of good performances around the middle of the season as well but eventually ended up losing 70 points leading into S8. During the end of the season, Accra managed to pull themselves back up overtaking Red Star Laos by Matchday 10 and finishing alongside Romana. Red Star Laos on the other hand saw themselves falling throughout the season losing 160 points.


In the top half of the division, the two promoted teams Buenos Aires and Paris were never really threatened at the top apart from Buenos Aires losing a couple games during the middle of the season. One of the more significant changes in ranking came from Montréal who managed to bottom out at 1318 rank before going on an impressive form landing on 1443 rank, an increase of about 100 during the entire season. Seoul managed to hold off the previous four teams and stay at around 1420-1470 throughout the entire season.

Division 1

The rankings in the first division follows the general trend seen in the season prior. Hollywood started and ended the season miles ahead of any other team, albeit a smaller difference than previous seasons. At the end of the season there are three distinct groupings of teams.


Hollywood continued on their domination of the division only falling down in rank during the latter half of the season allowing both Catalunya and Tokyo to bridge the gap between them. Tokyo's impressive form starting midway through the season saw them end up second in the league with 1661 rank, Catalunya close behind at 1658.


Athênai and Cairo saw no real change in rank throughout the season and their middle of the pack positions in the league is direct proof of this.


In the fight against relegation saw Kaapstad only getting one point out of the entire season and their ELO ranking reflect that. They end up actually 2 ranks below Red Star Laos at the bottom of Division 2 at 1340 rank. They were a surprise team to be promoted leading into S7, having a lower rank than many of the other teams fighting for the final spot alongside London. London and São Paulo had a much tighter race against relegation, with everything leading up to the final matchday and goal difference. In the rankings you can see that both teams had a better first half and declined in the second but what kept São Paulo alive was the run of successful games between matchday 9 and 12.

Overall ranking

The final ELO rankings at the end of S7 are as follows:

[FuriousChicken]

I guess the cup win over Kaapstad managed to get us in not last

[Canadice]

S8 ELO Update

A bit late into the season, but better late than never. The seasonal ELO updates for the SSL is upon us and I'll summarize the changes seen in both divisions and the biggest differences.

Division 2

The newly relegated teams of F.C. Kaapstad and Inter London saw two very different scenarios happening in S8. Kaapstad entered the season with the lowest rank of all teams and ended the season in the same position. Inter London saw a big swing back up to 1500 joining Seoul Mythic FC on the road to Division 1 for S9. There was a big gap between these two teams compared to the rest of the pack, but positions 3 through 7 clearly shows the tight competition that we will have in S9 among the remaining D2 teams.

Division 1

In Division 1 we saw União São Paulo fighting to stay up and while they have the lowest ELO ranking of the D1 teams, they managed to pull ahead on the final couple of matchdays against Cairo City and AS Paris. CA Buenos Aires came into their first season in the division absolutely smashing the opposition going from 1510 to their peak at 1630 with only a couple of games left. A bad run of form at the end saw them being surpassed by Athênai F.C. in the rankings (and the standings) to fall to 1566 ending the season. Hollywood continued their dominance throughout the season but Tokyo S.C. is catching up quickly and will most likely be on par with Hollywood this season.

Final ELO rankings of S8:

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Words: 220

[slothfacekilla]

Very cool

[Canadice]

S9 ELO

Another season has come to an end and the next season is just around the corner. Let's see how the ELO rankings have changed from the end of season 8.



Starting off in division one we see that the dominance of Hollywood FC has continued but they have been joined by the second and third placed teams in the division Tokyo S.C. and CA Buenos Aires. They all are now above 1700 ELO and it will be interesting to see how the fight for the championship plays out this season.

CF Catalunya dropped down to 5th in the rankings seeing themselves overtaken by both Buenos Aires and Athênai F.C. during S8. The two promoted division 2 teams dropped a bit during the season and fall below the 1500 rank in preparation for their return to the second division. União São Paulo saw a 70 point upswing at the end of the season resulting in a final ranking of 1522.




In division 2 we something really interesting. AS Paris continued their dominance but failed to reach the 2nd promotion spot and will stay in D2 for the next season. They will most likely be considered favorites for promotion given their strong results these past couple of seasons.

Cairo City came into the season as the top team of the division, but abruptly fell all the way down to 5th in their current rebuild. The new generation in Cairo will certainly want to push up again in the rankings this upcoming season.

The two promoted teams, Reykjavik United and A.C. Romana, saw themselves steadily increasing their rank and came out as the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams just above 1500. Montréal United started off the season strong but some setbacks in the middle saw themselves lose out on the promotion battle and finish 4th in the rankings just below 1500.

Red Star Laos, Adowa Accra FC (now Schwarzwälder FV) and F.C. Kaapstad rounds out the D2 teams at the bottom, with Kaapstad finding themselves at the lowest ranking ever in the league, at around 1260.

Overall ELO History