đ The Week in International Sport
Monday March 23rd: the World Baseball Classic, FIBA qualifiers and Kayla Reyneke
This year at Plot the Ball, Iâm using data to try and better understand the landscape of international team sport. For some background to this project â which Iâm calling âRank the Nationsâ â you can read my introductory post here.
In todayâs edition of The Week in International Sport:
đ»đȘ Venezuela winning a world title in menâs baseball
đŻđ” Japan winning an Asian title in womenâs soccer
đ Chart of the week: assessing Franceâs level after the FIBA World Cup qualifiers
âȘïž Highlight of the week: Kayla Reynekeâs sweet striking for South Africa
đ A few other interesting things I learned
As a reminder: the team ratings used in this newsletter are on a zero-to-10 scale, and are calculated based on a nationâs performance in competitive fixtures in a given sport since the start of the 2022 calendar year. (For more detail, click here.)
đ»đȘ Venezuela win the 2026 World Baseball Classic
One thing Iâm eventually planning on analysing as part of this âRank the Nationsâ project is the effect of home advantage on match results. Events like the World Baseball Classic are likely to be a bit confounding, though.
Even though the final was played on American soil, it didnât feel like the USA were at home. Support for South American and Caribbean teams in Miami was overwhelming throughout the tournament, and this continued on Tuesday; Venezuelaâs win was greeted with a huge outpouring of joy. Across the two editions of the WBC that have taken place since 2022, the two finalists have performed at a similar underlying level: both teams have scored 65% of the total runs in their matches.
Venezuela (7.4) have the higher team rating, however, having won eight of their 10 matches. (The USA (6.8) have only won 10 of their 14 in aggregate.) The Dominican Republic (7.3) are in roughly the same tier as the current champions, but both teams are a step behind 2023 WBC winners Japan (8.2). If the sportâs top players are available, the 2028 Olympic tournament should be hotly contested; at this point, Iâm definitely taking the field over the USA â even with home advantage in Los Angeles.
đŻđ” Japan win the 2026 AFC Womenâs Asian Cup
Japanâs journey to their third Asian Cup title in four tournaments was a remarkably impressive one. In this yearâs edition, they won all six of their games â by an aggregate scoreline of 29 goals to one.
Their excellent form over the last few weeks has vaulted them into the top three of my international womenâs soccer rankings; their team rating had improved from 7.0 at the start of this tournament to 7.9 by the end.
đ Chart of the week: Are France a true FIBA World Cup contender?
The qualifiers for the womenâs basketball World Cup are unusual: all of the sportâs strongest nations compete, regardless of whether or not theyâve already qualified. My takeaway from the latest edition? Look out for France at the main event in September.
The expansion of the Qualifying Tournament from 16 teams in 2022 to 24 in 2026 meant that most major nations improved their performance level this time around; no one took a bigger leap forward than the silver medallists from the last Olympics, though. France won all five of their games on home soil, after recording a 1-2 win-loss record back in 2022. Their âpoint shareâ improved out of sight, too: they scored only 47% of the points in their matches four years ago, but 59% of them this year.
âȘïž Highlight of the week: Kayla Reynekeâs sweet striking for South Africa
For a second consecutive week, my featured highlight is as much about what you can hear as what you can see. In this case, though, it wasnât crowd noise that drew me in: it was the sound the ball makes when it comes off the middle of Kayla Reynekeâs bat.
The 20-year-old has now faced 71 balls in T20I cricket since making her debut for South Africa â and sheâs hit 10 of them beyond the boundary for six. Only nine South Africans have hit more in the history of the format, and sheâs only been playing international cricket for a couple of months. Facing the second delivery of the final over of the teamâs innings against New Zealand last Tuesday, Reyneke got a ball in the slot and sent it high over the rope at cow corner with a bang.
You can watch a replay of this shot on YouTube here.
đ What else I learned last week
For the Boston Globe, Alex Speier laid out some of the challenges faced by Major League Baseball players from WBC champions Venezuela as a result of the US governmentâs immigration policy. Since December 2025, their visas have only covered a single entry to their country of employment; âif a Venezuelan player with a newly issued visa were to go home mid-season for a family emergency, he might need weeks to meet the requirements of returning to the United Statesâ.
For the Sydney Morning Herald, Chris Barrett and Iain Payten explained the Australian governmentâs proposed âsports diplomacyâ deal with Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. The nations would receive A$150mn for the development of rugby union â mirroring a similar deal for rugby league struck last year. Other context: the Chinese government has already begun funding sports infrastructure projects in the region, including a â[A]$40 million national sports complexâ in Tonga.
For The Athletic, Dermot Corrigan, Felipe CĂĄrdenas and Guillermo Rai reported on the cancellation of menâs soccerâs Finalissima â the quadrennial fixture between the winner of the Copa AmĂ©rica and the Euros. Spain were set to play Argentina in Qatar on Friday, but after the Iran war began an agreement on alternative arrangements couldnât be reached: â[t]wo weeks of negotiations between the stakeholders involvedâŠended in an exchange of acrimonious statementsâ.
The next edition of the newsletter will be published in two weeksâ time, on Monday April 6th.
