<p><strong>FIFA rating, according to which the Russian national team is the weakest 2018 World Cup team is full of shortcomings and doesn't reflect reality, writes Forbes journalist Stephen Price</strong><b>. <span>He notes that, according to another system of ranking national teams, the Russian team is superior to its rivals in the group - Saudi Arabia and Egypt</span>.</b></p><p><span>According to FIFA rankings, Russian national football team is the weakest team, participating in the 2018 World Cup</span>. <span>Nevertheless, FIFA rating has many shortcomings and it doesn't reflect the real state of affairs, <span>Stephen Price</span> writes in his article in Forbes</span>.<br /> <br /><span>FIFA rating is calculated from the formula by which the national team receives less points for friendly games, which thus become less attractive for teams</span>. <span>At the same time the national team who host the World Cup will automatically become a participant of the tournament and didn't take part in qualifying matches</span>.<br /> <br /><span>This has a negative effect on the rating of the team and (in the opinion of the author) allows to say that the rating of FIFA underestimates the Russian national team, putting it on the 70th place, that is below the rest of the teams in Group A</span>.<br /> <br /><span>The author of the article notes that according to another system of ranking national teams Elo, the Russian national team is the 27th among the best teams of the tournament and the 44th in the rating of the world's strongest teams</span>. <span>Despite the fact that the result is also disappointing, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are rivals of Russia in Group A, are located in this rating below</span>. <span>Moreover, according to Elo rating, the teams of these countries are the weakest teams of the tournament in 2018.</span><br /> <br /><span>In addition, the Transfermarkt site rating completely gives Russia 18th place among the most expensive teams with the combined value of all players of the national team at $ 195 million</span>. <span>This allows Russia to be on the third place in the group right after Egypt</span>. <span>The total cost of the Egyptian national team players is $ 238 million</span>.<span>At the same time, $ 180 million of this amount falls on Mohammed Salah</span>.<br /> <br /><span>According to the journalist, these statistics, along with the advantage of playing at home gives Russia <em>"an excellent opportunity"</em> to leave the group</span>. <span>At the same time FIFA ranking can be misleading not only about the potential of the Russian team, the author</span>. <span>So, FIFA underestimates the national teams of Spain, South Korea, England and a number of other countries, while overestimating the commands of a number of states such as Tunisia and Belgium</span>.</p><p> <br /><span>Despite the fact that the ratings of Elo and Transfermarkt can't predict the outcome of the tournament, they are more true than the FIFA rating, Price writes in his article in Forbes.</span> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span>According to the source:</span> <strong><a href="https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2018-06-10/Forbes-FIFA-nedoocenivaet-shansi-Rossii">Russian.RT.com</a></strong></p>