Nigeria has climbed six spots upwards to hit 61st place in the Fifa rankings released yesterday, though 12th ranked in Africa.
Super Eagles have been up and down in the rankings having ranked 66th in January, 63rd in February, 62nd in March and 67th in April.
The Eagles were unmoved in
May as they maintained 67th in the grading, but victories in their international friendly matches against Mali and Luxembourg last month ensured they amassed 559 points to move up.
In Africa, the Nigeria national football team is placed behind Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal, Egypt, Tunisia, Cape Verde, Congo DR, Guinea, Cameroon and Congo.
Algeria moved one place up to number 32 in the world, while reigning African kings Cote d’Ivoire dived two places to place number 36.
Argentina and Belgium held firm to the first and second spot in the world while Austria returned to the top ten with Uefa Euro hosts France moving up four places to 17th in the world.
Slovakia and Madagascar were top movers. The Europeans climbed eight steps to the 24th place, while the Africans rose 29 places into the top 108.
The next world ranking will be published on 14 July 2016.
The three-time African champions Nigeria could still face a very difficult 2018 World Cup qualifying group even after the latest FIFA rankings saw them move up by six spots.
It is widely believed that the top 5 in the continental ratings – Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal and Egypt – will enjoy a better chance of making Pot A of the draw on June 24 in Cairo, Egypt.
Next week, FIFA will announce the lucky five top seeds.
The climb up the FIFA rankings was down to the wins over Mali and Luxembourg achieved by caretaker coach Salisu Yusuf.
The 20-teams still in the reckoning will be drawn into five groups of four teams each with the five overall group winners catching the flight to Russia in 2018.
No comments:
Post a Comment