đ The Week in International Sport
Monday June 1st: volleyball ratings, test cricket's popularity and Ivar Stenberg
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”đ± Poland leading the way in menâs volleyball
đźđč Italy leading the way in womenâs volleyball
đ«đź Finland winning a world title in menâs ice hockey
đ Chart of the week: assessing the global popularity of test cricket
âȘïž Highlight of the week: Ivar Stenbergâs show-stopper
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”đ± Poland lead the first edition of the menâs volleyball ratings
Volleyball â the indoor version, that is â was the only ânet sportâ to make the cut for this project. (As an aside: Iâve not included beach volleyball, as itâs contested by pairs of players rather than ânational teamsâ â even at events like the Olympic Games.)
The nature of these sports is such that top competitors can squeeze an exceptionally high win rate out of a seemingly small advantage at the level of individual points. So it is with Poland (6.7), who are the dominant team in menâs international volleyball at present. They have won just 53% of their points in competitive play since 2022 â but 82% of their matches. Thatâs been enough to bring in a tidy haul of medals during this period: two Nations League golds and an Olympic silver, among several others.
Second-ranked Italy (6.5) have won points at a similar rate to their rivals, but have fewer outright wins to show for it. The result of this trend is a serious squeeze in the middle of the pack. 20 nations have played enough menâs volleyball matches over the last five years to qualify for the rankings above; 17 of those 20 teams have won between 48% and 52% of their competitive points since 2022, and currently have a âRank the Nationsâ rating between 4.0 and 6.0.
đźđč Italy lead the first edition of the womenâs volleyball ratings
Womenâs volleyball is a little more dispersed than the menâs game: top-ranked Italy (7.0) have won 54% of their points since 2022. They currently hold three major global trophies: Olympic gold, the World Championship and the Nations League title.
When the 2026 edition begins this week, in fact, theyâll be seeking their fourth Nations League title in five years. Last yearâs losing finalists Brazil (6.7) are one of Italyâs closest challengers, along with China (6.3), the USA (6.1) and Turkey (6.1).
đ«đź Finland win the 2026 Menâs Ice Hockey World Championship
Host nation Switzerland (5.7) had a dominant run through this yearâs Menâs Worlds, winning their first nine games of the tournament by 48 goals to eight in aggregate. In yesterdayâs final, however, they lost 0-1 to Finland (5.9) in sudden-death overtime.
The third-place playoff also went against recent form, as Canada (7.2) â who went unbeaten in pool play â lost 2-3 to Norway (3.9). The Nordic countryâs bronze medal represents their best-ever finish in a major menâs ice hockey competition.
đ Chart of the week: Is test cricket really that unpopular?
One sport I was surprised not to see near the top of my âpopularity scoreâ rankings a few weeks ago: test cricket. That list drew on Google Trends data; to investigate further, I plotted search activity for âcricketâ in general â leaving formats aside.
As the chart indicates, peak interest is driven by the flagship event in menâs ODI cricket: the 50-over World Cup, which takes place every four years. The World Test Championship was instituted in 2019 to provide menâs test cricket with a better competitive structure and more context for casual followers, but it doesnât yet appear to have captured their imagination; the latest final â contested by Australia and South Africa at Lordâs during June 2025 â barely registers in the data above.
âȘïž Highlight of the week: Ivar Stenbergâs show-stopper
I try to spread out my coverage across different sports each week, and weâve already briefly covered the latest in menâs international ice hockey. However, Ivar Stenbergâs goal for Sweden against Slovakia last Tuesday stopped me in my tracks.
The 18-year-old will be one of the top selections in this yearâs NHL Draft. His skating isnât rated that highly by scouts, but he showed real poise after carrying the puck across the blue line in the second period. The forward first angled his body towards the centre of the offensive zone; then, when the Slovak defender trailing him turned his shoulders inwards, he swivelled back into open space on his forehand side. His âhigh-endâ shot â per The Athleticâs draft guide, at least â took care of the rest.
You can watch a replay of this goal on Instagram here.
đ What else I learned last week
On their blog, Jesse Davis and Pieter Robberechts of the DTAI Sports Analytics Lab at KU Leuven published their predictions for the upcoming menâs soccer World Cup. No team has a better than one-in-four chance of winning the tournament outright, but Spain are the academicsâ current favourites: according to their model, the winners of the 2024 European Championship have âthe strongest offense and second best defense in the tournamentâ.
For the Sydney Morning Herald, Christian Nicolussi reported on the impact of the major changes to player eligibility instituted for the first time in this yearâs menâs rugby league âState of Originâ series in Australia. Players who represent other âtier oneâ teams â New Zealand and England â in international competition are no longer barred from playing in Origin. Of those picked for last weekâs series opener, âup to 15âŠcould take on host nation Australia at this yearâs World Cupâ.
For his newsletter, Simon Blanford analysed how often the top nations in womenâs field hockey score goals in different team-strength scenarios. During what he calls âunbalanced playâ, the scoring rate of the ânumbers-upâ team does increase, but the opposite effect is more pronounced. â[T]here is a general decline in goal scoring when a team loses a playerâŠfalling from about 3.5 goals a game to less than one. Effectively teams do not score when they lose a player to a card.â
The next edition of the newsletter will be published on Monday June 8th.
