Germany’s Federal Statistical Office has released a pretty slick document (pdf) in English containing profiles of the 32 countries participating in the World Cup. Stats include life expectancy, mean age of population, size of the economy, and number of internet users as well as data related to national football clubs like world ranking, World Cup appearances, and win/loss record against Germany.
Since I know next to nothing about international soccer I found it interesting just for the world rankings alone, although maybe those don’t mean much. As of January 2006 the US was ranked 7th while Germany was ranked 17th. So why do so many people think Germany is going all the way? Coca-cola certain does.
And does anyone with some free time want to see if soccer world rankings are correlated with other variables in that flyer?
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Coca-Cola tries to convince every country that they support them… I’m in Mexico now and every commercial break there’s an add for Coke saying “united for the tricolor” These rankings were for soccer?!? The US really isn’t that good (though they’re getting better) and Germany is *very* strong. I think Germany was in the last World Cup final against Brasil. But Brasil will always win
And you probably know this but most of the players from the better South American and African teams play in European leagues and that’s where their salaries come from. Let me know if someone does any crosstabs with the flyer!
Hi Lori,
It’d be interesting to get a collection of Coca-Cola’s various national campaigns for the World Cup and put them side-by-side.
Someone tried to explain the rankings to me; I guess they look so weird because they’re based partly on group/regional play, and the US isn’t in a very challenging area. Coincidentally, I notice that the official name of the rankings is the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings. What’s going on here?
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