Stories by Albert Akota
Nigeria football which has been witnessing dwindling fortunes on the monthly FIFA ranking in the past few months has moved two steps upward to rank 45th in April as against 47th last month.
In the world ranking released early yesterday, FIFA says Nigeria garnered 620 points to move to No. 45th and 6th in Africa. Interestingly, Nigeria’s Super Eagles are ranked below their Brazil 2014 World Cup Group F opponents. Bosnia & Herzegovina are No. 25th in the world, while Iran are on No. 37. Argentina are rated the best sixth team in the world.
In Africa, Ivorians’ Elephants are the number one team followed by Egypt, Algeria, Ghana and Cape Verde Islands. Tunisia is on No. 7th with Cameroon, Guinea and Mali completed the Africa’s Top 10 respectively.
Meanwhile, FIFA says Europe occupies the top three places on the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking after Portugal climbed third behind leaders Spain and Germany.
They are followed by four South American sides in Colombia (4th, up 1), Uruguay (5th, up 1) and fierce rivals Argentina (down 3) and Brazil (up 3), who share sixth position. Just 12 points separate this quartet.
Greece returns to the top ten for the first time since October 2012, while Scotland (22nd, up 15) are the only team to have climbed over ten places. Two teams managed to reach their highest-ever positions: Azerbaijan (85th, up 6) and Afghanistan (122nd, up 5).
The world soccer ruling body also disclosed that only six matches were played over the past month. The majority of changes to the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking can be attributed to the devaluation of matches from previous years, most of which were FIFA World Cup qualifiers and now have a greatly reduced weighting.
No team has managed to break into the top 50. UEFA has an unparalleled 27 sides in the leading half-century, following by CONMEBOL and the CAF on eight, CONCACAF on five, the AFC on two and the OFC on zero.
The six matches played brought the total number evaluated so far this year to 128. The next FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking will be published on 8 May 2014.
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