Two months ago, the World Baseball Softball Confederation released a first-ever world ranking for softball across both men’s and women’s fastpitch disciplines.
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But the rankings only included countries that were represented at the two most recent World Championships, so only five women’s national teams and three men’s teams from Europe were placed.
Great Britain was ranked 10th out of 18 listed countries in men’s fastpitch and was tied for 14th place out of 22 listed countries in women’s fastpitch.
European rankings
Now, however, the European Softball Federation is introducing its own European rankings for countries in women’s and men’s fastpitch -- and also in slowpitch!
The ESF ranking system evaluates countries according to their Senior National Team results, but also takes into account Youth National Team attendance at European Championships. So this system produces a points total and rankings that reflect a combination of competition achievement and softball development.
One reason the rankings were introduced was to help National Federations become more effective at promoting softball national teams, finding funding sources and establishing partnerships.
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GB placings
Great Britain does well in the new European rankings, despite the fact that our national team programmes, particularly in fastpitch, are relatively recent compared with other European countries.
GB ranks fifth out of 26 listed countries in women’s fastpitch and fourth out of eight listed countries in men’s fastpitch.
And we are of course #1 in the European slowpitch rankings, again out of eight listed countries.
One of the surprises in the table is that the Netherlands, who were European Champions in women's fastpitch from 2009 through 2014, are only ranked fourth -- but this is because their recent participation in European Championships at youth level has declined.
Ireland, who played in their first-ever women's fastpitch tournament at European Championships last year, are ranked 23rd, three off the bottom.
And the #1 team is women's fastpitch is the Czech Republic. The Czechs have never won the European Championship, but they consistently place in the top four, they enter youth teams in every ESF competition available and they are currently Under-19 European Champions.
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Ranking tables
Here are the ESF’s rankings and points totals for each of the three disciplines:
WOMEN'S FASTPITCH SOFTBALL
| COUNTRY | RANK | POINTS |
|---|---|---|
| Czech Republic | 1 | 4162 |
| Italy | 2 | 4050 |
| Russia | 3 | 3987 |
| Netherlands | 4 | 3900 |
| Great Britain | 5 | 3362 |
| Germany | 6 | 2750 |
| Spain | 7 | 2425 |
| Austria | 8 | 2275 |
| France | 9 | 1987 |
| Sweden | 10 | 1650 |
| Ukraine | 11 | 1637 |
| Denmark | 12 | 1400 |
| Belgium | 13 | 1237 |
| Greece | 14 | 1225 |
| Slovakia | 15 | 1137 |
| Poland | 16 | 1000 |
| Croatia | 17 | 950 |
| Slovenia | 18 | 700 |
| Switzerland | 19 | 600 |
| Israel | 20 | 450 |
| Lithuania | 21 | 437 |
| Serbia | 22 | 287 |
| Ireland | 23 | 200 |
| Bulgaria | 24 | 112 |
| Hungary | 25 | 50 |
| Romania | 25 | 50 |
MEN'S FASTPITCH SOFTBALL
| COUNTRY | RANK | POINTS |
|---|---|---|
| Czech Republic | 1 | 1475 |
| Denmark | 2 | 1150 |
| Netherlands | 3 | 800 |
| Great Britain | 4 | 775 |
| Israel | 5 | 550 |
| Croatia | 6 | 525 |
| Belgium | 7 | 300 |
| Poland | 8 | 50 |
CO-ED SLOWPITCH
| COUNTRY | RANK | POINTS |
|---|---|---|
| Great Britain | 1 | 900 |
| Czech Republic | 2 | 600 |
| Ireland | 3 | 550 |
| Germany | 4 | 500 |
| Slovenia | 5 | 250 |
| Bulgaria | 6 | 200 |
| Lithuania | 7 | 100 |
| Serbia | 8 | 50 |