đ The Week in International Sport
Monday February 9th: women's water polo, U19 cricket and KaltounkovĂĄ's Olympic opener
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:
đłđą The Netherlands winning a European title in womenâs water polo
đŞđ¸ Spain winning a European title in menâs futsal
đ Chart of the week: assessing Indiaâs success in youth ODI cricket
âŞď¸ Highlight of the week: KristĂ˝na KaltounkovĂĄâs first Olympic point
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.)
đłđą The Netherlands win the 2026 Womenâs European Water Polo Championship
Already, this project has been useful for highlighting sports where playing talent in the menâs game appears to be differently distributed to the womenâs version. (Why these differences arise is another question, which Iâll try and answer as the year goes on.)
Water polo is one sport that itâs helpful to look at through this lens. Like in the menâs game, Spain (7.3) have been the top-rated womenâs side since 2022; however, only two other nations from the menâs top six are also present at the top of the womenâs rankings. There is much more geographical diversity on the other side of the sport: whereas the menâs top six featured only European nations, two countries from other continents â the USA (7.2) and Australia (6.0) â feature in the table below.
Theyâre not shown here, but Canada (5.5), Brazil (4.3) and New Zealand (3.8) also round out the womenâs gameâs top 10. (Only two non-European nations makes it into the menâs top 10.) Iâm keen to learn more about water polo in the Netherlands, too. They have one of the highest-rated womenâs teams in the world (6.9), and won a second consecutive European title last Thursday. Their menâs team, in contrast, hasnât even played enough top-level games over the last five years to qualify for a rating.
đŞđ¸ Spain win the 2026 menâs European Futsal Championship
For the second weekend in a row, two of the top nations in menâs futsal went head to head in a continental final. While the favourite won last weekâs Copa AmĂŠrica decider, the last game at UEFA Futsal Euro 2026 was won by the lower-rated team.
On Saturday, Spain (7.5) beat Portugal (7.9) 5-3 to win their first European title in a decade. Both teams were unbeaten heading into the final; in fact, Portugal hadnât lost at the Euros since 2016 â when Spain knocked them out on the way to their last title.
đ Chart of the week: Are India unstoppable in youth ODI cricket?
As well as cross-gender comparisons, Iâm also interested in using this database to compare nationsâ performances across age-grades. With the conclusion of the menâs under-19 World Cup last week, I thought ODI cricket was a good place to start.
Here, Iâve compared each nationâs win rate in U19 World Cup matches to their win rate in senior menâs World Cups since 1998. India and Australia are the top two at each level, but the much larger country does much better at U19 level. This lines up with my expectation: bigger populations should churn out more talent on a year-to-year basis, but a bottleneck effect exists at the top of international sport. It doesnât matter if you have 50 cricketers of international quality; only 11 can play at any one time.
âŞď¸ Highlight of the week: KristĂ˝na KaltounkovĂĄâs first Olympic point
Europeans arenât just moving to North America to play professional womenâs ice hockey, as we saw last week; many emigrate to play at collegiate level, too. One such player is KristĂ˝na KaltounkovĂĄ, a 23-year-old forward from the Czech Republic.
KaltounkovĂĄ was the first selection in last yearâs PWHL Draft out of Colgate University, and has already established herself at senior level: she was an All-Star at last yearâs World Championship, and â per The Athleticâs player-value model, at least â is the best player at this yearâs Olympics not on the roster of the USA or Canada. She got her first point at the Games on Friday by putting her body on the line, throwing herself towards a rebound and spearing the puck between the Swiss goalieâs legs into the net.
You can watch a replay of this goal on Instagram here.
đ What else I learned last week
For The Athletic, Dom Luszczyszyn analysed the strength of every elite nationâs menâs ice hockey team at past major tournaments. One interesting takeaway from this work is that â despite their squadâs enviable depth this year â Swedenâs best players at this Olympics donât match up to their stars of the past. Per Luszczyszyn: âSwedenâs top four forwards and top defenseman usually combine for 70 goals of value. The 2026 roster sits at 55.â
For The Ringer, Ben Lindbergh looked back over the history of the rosters picked by the USA for the World Baseball Classic. This year, things look particularly good for the country that will host the WBCâs knockout rounds â especially on the pitching mound, where the Americans have generally failed to persuade top eligible players to join their team. Lindbergh concludes that this is âthe first time that an American club in the WBC can truly aspire to a âDream Teamâ labelâ.
For The Athletic, Colin Millar and Felipe CĂĄrdenas reported on measures brought in by Argentinaâs national governing body to prevent soccer players who sign their first professional contracts overseas from being called up for international squads. This initiative is designed to keep their best youth players on home soil; â[s]even players who have been called up to the [menâs] senior squad since the September international window would not qualify for selection under this ruleâ.
The next edition of the newsletter will be published in two weeksâ time, on Monday February 23rd.
