Lies, damned lies and Fifa statictics...
For quite a while now we have been puzzled by the vagaries of the Castrol Index, Fifa's system for ranking players performances.
We are a big believer in statistical analysis here but quite how Fifa put this list together is beyond us. According to the
latest figures, published today the best player at the World Cup so far is David Luiz. Yes, the Brazilian David Luiz.
Okay, Brazil have conceded very few goals (and being credited with that goal against Chile helped) but there is no way that the former Chelsea man is the best player we've seen this past three weeks.
The rest of the top 10 is not quite so upsetting. Colombian sensation, and top scorer, James Rodriguez is second while third-placed Karim Benzema and fourth-placed Arjen Robben are also in their correct spots.
However the inclusion of Johann Djourou at nine and Lionel Messi at a lowly 11 is hard to fathom, especially when you cast an eye over how WhoScored, our preferred stats site online, are rating the players.
They have Messi on top with a 9.25 rating, ahead of Robben Rodriguez, Neymar and Di Maria. That looks a far more realistic list of the best players than Fifa have. By the way, they have David Luiz at 24.
You can check out the full WhoScored ranking
here and if you want to try and understand the Castrol Index here's their explanatory video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNuW-J_7CjI
