What is the Strongest and Hardest World Cup in History?

The World Cup could be the first tournament any new football fan may see. It attracts the masses, and is easily accessible in terms of narrative than any other club competition. In the end, it’s vastly different countries battling against each other for the ultimate prize. The 22nd iteration of the world cup is just about to start and I thought it would be interesting to try to investigate and answer the simple question of, which is the strongest World Cup tournament in history? and which was the hardest triumph in World Cup history?

In my last study, I tried to answer the same question but in the European club competitions. A combination of domestic league rankings plus European league coefficients helped me in figuring out a way to calculate relative strength in different leagues and build an appropriate ranking system.
National team competitions are different in terms of measurement.

Relative strength is trickier to calculate given that qualifiers are continent based and head to head matches between countries from vastly different locations only happen in the World cup or let’s say the now dropped confederations cup. Of course friendlies are an option, but the importance of a friendly differs depending on the country and the timing of it. Some national teams use friendlies to experiment, and others see it as a way to improve their world rankings.


The only way to calculate and try to answer the original questions is to use Elo ratings.


Written, Directed, and Edited by:
Fahad Al-Thekair



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Timestamps:

0:00 Intro
1:53 Why Elo Ratings ?
5:00 WC 2018 Example
8:26 Top 5 World Cups
13:32 Top 5 Weakest World Cups
19:40 The ODR Formula
20:54 Top 5 Toughest WC Triumphs