Wednesday, February 10, 2010

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: February 2010

Rank (previous) Team Points Comment
1 (1) Spain 1627  
2 (2) Brazil 1568  
3 (3) Netherlands 1288  
4 (4) Italy 1209  
5 (5) Portugal 1176  
6 (6) Germany 1173  
7 (7) France 1117  
8 (8) Argentina 1082  
9 (9) England 1076  
10 (24) Egypt 1069 A meteoric rise and the highest ranking ever!
11 (10) Croatia 1053  
12 (13) Greece 1030 A slight adjustment in points.
13 (12) Russia 1026  
14 (14) USA 963  
15 (22) Nigeria 956 Another African country that gained significantly.
16 (15) Chile 955  
17 (17) Mexico 947  
18 (18) Switzerland 924  
19 (19) Serbia 916  
20 (11) Cameroon 914 Naturally some African country must have suffered!

January 2010 was the month for the Africa Cup of Nations, a biennial competition that Egypt apparently owns! Egypt defended their title and shot up the rankings to reach to their highest position ever. It seems that Egypt destroyed most of the competition (Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria, Benin, and Mozambique).

Cote d’Ivoire reached the quarter finals and lost to Algeria. BTW, it seems that reaching the quarter finals is fairly automatic for the good African teams since they beat up on the likes of Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, etc. Therefore, Ivory Coast dropped out of the top 20 and they do not seem like serious competition for Brazil and Portugal.

Algeria reached the semi finals and lost to Egypt (4-0!)

Nigeria managed wins against ‘powerhouses’ Benin, Mozambique, and Zambia (in penalties) before losing to Ghana. They finished third and they reached the 15th spot. (If Greece is serious the round of 16 is possible.)

Full table can be found at FIFA World Ranking.

No comments:

Post a Comment