France likely to edge past Belgium to be First in FIFA Team rankings November 2018
As it stands, Belgium is Ranked numero uno in the FIFA rankings released on 25th October 2018 with 1733 points. France with 1732 is ranked second closely on the heels of Belgium. The third-placed team Brazil has only 1669 points and does not pose any immediate threat to the top 2 teams. And Fourth-placed Croatia does not pose any kind of immediate threat to Brazil either.
After the 25th October rankings were released by FIFA, both Croatia and Belgium did not play any International matches during the ranking window and hence their points are not expected to change.
But, France played one friendly against Uruguay, while Brazil played 2 International friendlies against Uruguay and Cameroon.
With FIFA all set to release the latest FIFA world rankings on November 29, let us look at what will be the latest points of France and Brazil as per the latest FIFA Elo ranking methodology and see who comes on top of the FIFA ranking.
# 2 Brazil - FIFA rating - 1669
Brazil played 2 friendlies against Uruguay and Cameroon in the relevant period and scored wins against both the teams.
Now when we try to forecast the FIFA rating for Brazil based on the latest FIFA Elo ranking methodology, this is the result that we obtain.
As you can see, Brazil won around 4 points to go from 1669 to 1673 after their win against Uruguay and continued their journey by earning around 3 points to take their final rating to 1676. With this rating score, Brazil will remain third in the FIFA rankings table ahead of Croatia ( At 1635) and still short of France and Belgium at the top of the podium.
Forecasted FIFA ranking
No. 3 - Brazil - 1676 points
No. 4 - Croatia - 1635 points
Now let us move on to what happens at the top 2 positions in the next slide.