With the world cup kicking off in south africa at midnight tonight, we all know the heavyweights of soccer are Brazil, Spain, Italy and England. But if there was a World Cup for teams punching well above their weight the clear winner would be our trans-Tasman rival New Zealand.

The All Whites - we still wonder how that nickname will go down in apartheid-free South Afria - Top an index devised to see which country at the World Cup is performing at its peak.

The index takes into account the country's FIFA ranking, its population and the team's dollar value.

It uses an equation wheree it divides FIFA's ranking points by the country's populatkion then divides the sum by the value of the team (in pounds).

The result of the equation is what the index calls the 'Live Quotent' LQ, which it says indicates the performance of each country.

New Zealand leads the table with an LQ of 22.11, which is a long way ahead of next ranked Slovakia (6.48). Slovenia (6.25), Uruguay (4.08) , Paraguay (3.31) and Honduras (2.77).

Australia is 12th with an LQ of 1.35, behind Denmark, Switzerland, Greece, North Korea and Serbia.

Australia's ranking is formulated from its 867 FIFA points, its 21 million population and the tram value of 31 million pounds.

the Kiwis have 398 points a population of 4 million and a team value of 5 million ponds.

Brazil has 1594 points, a population of 192 million and a team value of 203 million pounds.

Serbians who the socceros play in their final match are just ahead of Australia in 11th place with an LQ of 1.49.

Our other group opponents Ghana and Germany have LQ's of 0.58 and 0.12 respectively.

Teams ranked at the bottom end of the scale include Brazil (0.04), the US (0.06), Nigeria (0.07), England (0.11), Spain (0.13) and Argentina, France and Japan (all 0.14).

We realise this won't mean a hoot when the first ball is kicked tonight. But if you're a kiwi it's a chance to claim some rare glory.

[quote=The Herald Sun]The index takes into account the country's FIFA ranking, its population and the team's dollar value.