How lucky is Gareth Southgate’s England? Analysing their tournament performance using FIFA World Rankings

Are England really better under Gareth Southgate or just lucky?

An analysis of the difficulty of the tournament in England can help answer that question.

FIFA’s world rankings aren’t a perfect science. The rankings are determined by a points system awarded based on a country’s performance in FIFA-recognized international matches. Belgium held the No. 1 spot from October 2018 to February 2022 but has never won a trophy. But the rankings at least provide a quantitative metric that gives an unbiased idea of ​​which teams are considered the strongest at any given time.

The Euro 2024 final against Spain will be England’s 70th tournament since the introduction of the FIFA rankings. England have appeared in 15 major tournaments since 1992 – eight World Cups and seven European Championships.

To arrive at a difficulty rating, we added up the world rankings of all the teams that played in the tournament at the time and divided it by the number of games played in that tournament. The lower the number, the better the quality of the opponents and the more difficult the tournament was (at least in theory).

According to the data, it looks like this:

England’s Easiest Run

Statistically speaking, the easiest group England have ever had was at the 2006 World Cup, when they faced Paraguay (35th), Trinidad and Tobago (91st) and Sweden (14th). Playing against Ecuador (30th) in the round of 16 and Portugal (8th) in the quarter-finals dropped the overall average to 36, England’s easiest result in any tournament.

In 2016, Euros expanded from 16 to 24 teams and the change in format really proved valuable with England suffering a historic defeat to Iceland. Roy Hodgson’s side played just four games in the tournament against lower-ranked teams: Wales (12th), Slovakia (25th), Russia (56th) and Iceland (21st).

England were eliminated from Euro 2016 after losing to Iceland, who were ranked 21st in the world at the time (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

England’s success at the past two Euros can be partly explained by the fact that the draws for Euro 2024 and Euro 2020 were the third and sixth “easiest” draws since 1992. Euro 2020 actually took place in 2021, so the 2021 world rankings are used for that tournament.

Being in the same group as France seems like a tall order, but at Euro 2012 they were not the force they later became in the late 2010s.

France were ranked 17th in the world in 2012, while England were ranked 6th when they were in the same group at Euro 2012. The two teams played out a 1-1 draw in that match before losing to Italy (ranked 4th) on penalties in the quarter-finals.

England’s toughest runs

Judged by the strength of the world rankings of the opponents, England’s two toughest tournaments were Euro 2000 and Euro 1992.

In both tournaments, England were eliminated in the group stage, finishing third and fourth respectively.

England also finished bottom of the table at the 2014 World Cup, being drawn in the same group as Italy (11th), Uruguay (10th) and Costa Rica (16th), losing 1-2 to the former two teams and drawing 0-0 with the latter.

The overall average world ranking is slightly skewed by England’s games against world number one Brazil in the quarter-finals and world number five Argentina in the group stage at the 2002 World Cup. England’s other opponents were Sweden (25th), Nigeria (29th) and Denmark (12th).

According to the world rankings of opponents, England’s performance at the last World Cup in 2022 was the fifth toughest..

Southgate’s team drew with the second-highest ranked team they faced (USA, 13th) and lost to the highest ranked team they faced (France, 3rd), which leads us to the next big story.

England’s record against the ‘big teams’

Since 1992, England have played 22 matches against teams ranked in the top 10 in the world at World Cups or Euros.

These countries include Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain, as well as Denmark (9th in 1992 and 2021), Sweden (4th in 1992) and Uruguay (10th in 2014).

England have also faced teams that might be considered some of the best in the world at times when those teams were outside the top 10.

For simplicity’s sake, the analysis also takes into account six matches against France (19th in 1992, 17th in 2012), Germany (11th in 2000, 12th in 2021), Italy (11th in 2014) and Croatia (11th in 2021). In total, there have been 28 instances since 1992 when England have faced ‘big teams’ at a World Cup or Euros.

Prior to Southgate (2016 to the present), managers who have managed England in major tournaments since 1992 include Graham Taylor (1990-93), Terry Venables (1994-96), Glenn Hoddle (1996-99), Kevin Keegan (1999-2000), Sven-Goran Eriksson (2001-06), Fabio Capello (2008-12) and Roy Hodgson (2012-16).

The table below shows how Southgate’s win percentage against the ‘big teams’ in the tournament compares to his predecessor.

Southgate has faced the ‘big teams’ nine times in the tournament, while the other seven managers who have managed England in the tournament have played a combined 19 games.

England have recorded as many wins against the “big teams” in the past eight years as they have in the past 24 years, with Southgate winning four of his nine matches.

England beat Germany, ranked 12th in the world, in the round of 16 at Euro 2020 (Catherine Evill/Getty Images)

Apart from Venables, who has two wins against top-ranked teams in the tournament, no other England manager has won a knockout stage match since 1992, and no other manager has recorded more than one win.

The obvious caveat is that England won the World Cup in 1966 – not that they’ve never beaten a favourite – but the country’s biggest win ever has been left out here because, prior to the introduction of FIFA’s world rankings in 1992, there was no clear standard by which teams could be categorised.

Between 2002 and 2020, England went 18 years without a win against a team ranked in the top 10 – a period that included Southgate’s first World Cup as England manager in 2018.

In the knockout stages in Russia, England beat two teams outside the top 10, Colombia (ranked 12th) and Sweden (ranked 14th), but lost 1-2 to Croatia (ranked 4th) in the semi-finals and twice to Belgium, then the highest-ranked team in the world, in the group stage (1-0) and in the third-place play-off (2-0).

Failure to beat top teams at the 2018 World Cup created the impression that Southgate had it easy, a trend that was somewhat reversed at Euro 2020, with three wins against “big teams”, but failure to beat the USA and eventual finalists France at the 2022 World Cup has reignited the debate.

England have reached the final at Euro 2024 but have only faced one team in the Netherlands ranked in the top 10. How many English teams have had a similar experience before?

Good luck

At Euro 2020 and Euro 2024, only Belgium and France were ranked higher than England – in both cases, these teams were on the opposite side of England in the knockout stages.

At Euro 2024, the highest-placed English team in the knockout stages before the final was the Netherlands (7th), while in Euro 2020 it was Denmark (9th). England beat both teams in the semi-finals.

It’s not as simple as saying that just because FIFA ranks a team high in the world rankings, that team will be a favorite to win every time they play a lower-ranked team, but it does provide a useful guideline for setting expectations.

Southgate has managed England in four major tournaments; seven other managers have managed the other 11 since 1992. The table below shows the average world ranking of their opponents in each knockout round.

It can also be argued that past England teams might have progressed further had they faced teams expected to play in the last 16 in the quarter-finals.

Between 1996 and 2012, England’s previous encounters in the quarter-finals of major tournaments were against Spain, Brazil, Portugal (twice) and Italy. England’s only victory in those five matches was against Spain on penalties at Euro 1996.

Under Southgate, England have faced Sweden, Ukraine, France and Switzerland at the same stage, winning three of their four matches.

The average world ranking of the teams England have faced in the semi-finals under Southgate is eighth. Germany were ranked second in the world at Euro 1996, the only time England have reached the last four since 1992 and before 2016.

Gareth Southgate’s England will face Spain in the Euro 2024 final on Sunday (Stu Forster/Getty Images)

If England, ranked fifth in the world, can beat Spain, ranked eighth in the Euro 2024 final on Sunday, England fans will no longer care how lucky they have been under Southgate to avoid the “big teams” so many times.

But if they fail to win the competition, this could go down as one of the biggest “what ifs” in English football history.

The opportunities Southgate’s England have had in terms of who they face in the second half of major tournaments is a luxury that previous England teams have never enjoyed.

(Top photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)