Kickoff (Cape Town)
4 September 2008
South Africa's 2-2 draw in London against Australia last month has seen the country climb three places in the latest Fifa world rankings, released on Wednesday.
But Bafana Bafana are still hovering outside the top 50 in 70th place, a far cry from the high of 16th reached in the heady days following success in the 1996 African Nations Cup finals.
South Africa are now ranked 16th in Africa, just below Zambia and above Algeria. Their opponents on Saturday, Nigeria are fifth on the continent and 27th in the world rankings.
Spain, who will be in South Africa for next year's Fifa Confederations Cup, continue to hold onto top spot with a comfortable cushion of more than 200 points.
Their nearest challengers are once again world champions Italy (2nd, up 1), who have swapped places with Germany (3rd, down 1), although the Netherlands (4th, no change) are also within touching distance of the Italians and the Germans.
The major movers in the upper reaches are Mexico (24th), whose climb of eight places sees them overtake the USA (28th, up 3) as the highest ranked CONCACAF team.
Further down, a number of teams have made considerable progress since last month, including Gabon (62nd, up 12), Algeria (76th, up 14), Trinidad and Tobago (80th, up 12) and New Caledonia (95th, up 21), the latter having benefited from a devaluation of past results to once again replace New Zealand (111th, no change) as the highest Oceanian representatives, just as they did exactly one year ago.
The best ranked African side is Cameroon, who are 14th in the world.
The next rankings will be published on October 8.
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