gence might be observed.
International Soccer
Convergence and Soccer
Summer 2014 • H A R V A R D I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E V I E W
43
C onvergence
Figure 2
for
One of the first acts of a new nation is to create a
national soccer team and build a national soccer stadium.
However, new nations face a number of disadvantages in
playing international soccer, namely that the players and
coaches lack experience. However, soccer nations appear
to learn over time. One way to identify this process is to
examine the performance of teams from different continental federations. There are six continental federations:
UEFA (Europe), CONMEBOL (South America), Asia
(AFC), Africa (CAF), North and Central America and the
Caribbean (CONCACAF), and Oceania (OFC). Nations
from UEFA and CONMEBOL had a significant head start
in competition, with most nations having established teams
before the Second World War. By contrast, colonialism
meant that there were few recognized independent nations
in Asia and Africa, and the independence of nations from
these continents was generally achieved between 1950
and 1970. Figure 2 shows the cumulative win percentage
(treating ties as half a win) of national teams from these
two federations against European and South American
teams since 1960
From Figure 2, it is apparent that teams from Asia
have improved their performance significantly over the
past half century. Note that in the early years, there are
relatively few games. In the case of African nations, performance seems to actually decline in the early years, but
has been improving since the 1970s (these early results are
dominated by the games played by Egypt, which played
several games against relatively weak European opponents
such as Malta, tending to give an overly favorable view of
the team’s performance). The great Brazilian player Pele
famously predicted that an African nation would win the
World Cup by 2000 – a prediction which clearly did not
come true. Moreover, the performance of African nations
T esting
The first national soccer federation was formed in
England in 1863. A second federation was formed in
Scotland, and the two nations played the first international
representative game in 1872 (in fact, the game was played
on November 30, 1872, while the Scottish Football Association was not created until March 13, 1873). This
pattern has been repeated for several nations, but the
overwhelming majority of national team games are played
under the auspices of a national federation recognized by
FIFA, the federation of national soccer federations. As
the game spread around the world, national federations
proliferated, and so did the number of international games.
For more than a century, the number of national federations and national soccer teams has approximately equaled
the number of nations on the planet. By 1950, there were
around 50 nations playing international soccer and around
250 international games played each year.
As Figure 1 shows, since 1950, the number of nations
has grown to be more than 200 following decolonization
and the collapse of the Soviet Union. FIFA now has 209
member federations, although not all of these play every
year. The UN actually has fewer members (only 193)
partly because some countries have managed to negotiate
representation for regional teams (the United Kingdom
is allowed four national teams- England, Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland) and also because some dependencies have been permitted to field national teams (e.g.
Guadeloupe is a Caribbean island that is part of France
but has its own soccer team). The number of international
games played has grown to around 1500, reflecting easier
international transport, improved broadcasting technology, and the growing appetite for the game.
When comparing the economic performance of different nations, there are usually substantial statistical challenges. Methods of collecting statistics differ substantially
across different countries, and reliability is often an issue.
Soccer results, by contrast, can be