Nigeria Super Eagles have moved up one
place to 52nd position according to the
latest FIFA Ranking which was released
yesterday.
The upward movement is as a result of
their 2-0 friendly victory over Niger
Republic and a goalless draw with
Tanzania in the 2017 African Cup of
Nations qualifier.
Interestingly, Nigeria’s opponents in the
October friendlies, Cameroon and Congo,
and the Eagles’ AFCON qualifying group
rivals Egypt, were ranked seventh, eighth
and ninth in Africa.
They, however, droped to 10th from a
previous 9th in the Africa ranking while
Algeria, 19th in the world, maintained her
position as Africa’s top team.
Coted’ivoire, Ghana , Tunisia and Senegal
made up the five top teams in Africa,
while the likes of Cape Valde, Cameroon,
Congo and Egypt were all ranked ahead
of Nigeria.
Meanwhile, Germany had reclaimed her
top spot and trail leaders Argentina (1st,
unchanged) by just 18 points. Belgium
(3rd, down 1) completed the top three.
Other climbers in the top ten include
Portugal (4th, up 2) and Spain (6th, up
5), while Colombia (5th, down 1) and
Brazil (7th, down 2) have lost ground.
Spain’s re-entry after three months is
down to two wins in qualifiers for UEFA
EURO 2016, while Wales (8th, up 1) and
Austria (11th, up 2) have achieved their
highest-ever rankings, with the latter
having already qualified for next year’s
tournament.
The biggest movers in the top 50 are
Norway (34th, up 35) and Cape Verde
Islands (41st, up 15). A number of teams
outside the top 50 have also made big
leaps, namely Liberia (95th, up 65), South
Sudan (144th, up 54), Nicaragua (95th,
up 44), the Central African Republic
(126th, up 42), the Cook Islands (166th,
up 39), Georgia (110th, up 37), American
Samoa (164th, up 35), Samoa (162nd, up
34), Finland (64th, up 28), Mauritania
(89th, up 25), Antigua and Barbuda (83rd,
up 22), Aruba (115th, up 22) and Burundi
(113th, up 21).
The results of 149 international ‘A’
matches have been taken into account in
the October edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola
World Ranking, of which 48 were World
Cup qualifiers in the CONCACAF (12),
Asia (30) and Oceania (6) zones, and 75
were qualifiers for confederation
championships in Europe (50) and Africa
(25). The other 26 matches were
friendlies. This takes the total number of
matches evaluated so far this year to
668.
