I always knew it. You see, while capable of frivolity I am dead serious about the Fink Tank. I believe that data is the future of sports management and sports journalism. So I have always believed that the footballing establishment would take up the work we are doing.

And now it is. For I can announce that analysis by the Fink Tank’s experts is to be used by Fifa to rank player performance during the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa next summer.

The driver behind this development is Castrol, one of the tournament’s official sponsors. The company, with a strong interest in performance data, created the Castrol Index. And it called in the Fink Tank’s experts, Dr Ian Graham and Dr Henry Stott, to help to devise a system that could objectively analyse and rank player performance. It proved successful at Euro 2008 and at the Confederations Cup and an enhanced version, the Fifa Castrol Index, will be used next summer.

The index tracks everything that happens on a pitch and assesses whether it has a positive or negative impact on a team’s ability to score. The index divides the pitch into zones. Players receive points for actions such as successful passes or tackles, but how much credit they earn depends on how many zones the ball goes through. So a sideways pass in midfield is less valuable than a penetrating through-ball that reached its target, and a tackle in a defender’s own penalty area gains more points than one on the wing – although the system would also penalise that team for allowing an attacker so near the goal in the first place.

Context will also be taken into consideration. For example, players will be ranked higher if they perform well in the World Cup final than in a group game. Once all the data is crunched, each player will be rated out of ten.

The index (which can be found at castrolfootball.com) is up and running for the European qualifiers. The graphic shows how those England players with enough games to be ranked have fared. Wayne Rooney is, you will notice, sitting right at the top

The final analysis

“Remember your Greek tragedy in 2004”. So read the painful e-mail from Dr Ian Graham. He was reminding me of my biggest Fink Tank error, the time I said that Greece’s chances of winning their first match was 13 per cent, “which is 13 per cent more than their chance of winning the tournament”. Which, of course, they won.

The reason for Ian’s reminder is that England appear to have a 100 per cent chance of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. But, as with Greece, the Fink Tank rounds its figures. The chance is above 99.5 per cent.

The most striking figure in the graphic is Portugal’s qualification chance — only 25 per cent. That’s almost identical to Ireland’s. France (on 68 per cent) still have work to do. Sweden (19 per cent) are in trouble, while Denmark (91 per cent) are nearly there. Serbia (80 per cent) are looking good, as are Germany (93 per cent)

Weight of expectation

The reason for England’s high qualifying chance is not simply their short-term performance in the qualifying games. It is because England are now one of the hottest teams in the tournament.

The Fink Tank ranking, a weighted measure of international performance over the past few seasons, ranks England fourth, ahead of Argentina and Germany. Holland are only just ahead, with almost identical figures to England.

The reason for England’s high ranking is the country’s attack, which is the third best in the world, clearly better than Spain’s but still behind Brazil and with Germany in second. The problem is at the back, where England rank only seventh, a smidgin behind Italy. Brazil top the overall ranking, followed by Spain.

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