Patrick Omorodion
13 November 2008
Nigeria moved one step in Africa and five steps on the FIFA monthly ranking released by FIFA
yesterday to place third in the continent behind Cameroun and Egypt and 22nd in the world as only nine African countries made the top 50 teams in the world.
Despite dropping two steps, Cameroun, whose top striker, Samuel Eto'Fils, ran riot last eekend scoring four of Barcelona's six goals against Valladolid in the Spanish La liga, maintained her top spot as Africa's numero uno and 14th in the world.
Closely following Came-roun are African Cham-pions, Egypt, who gained one step to occupy the 21st position in the world and second on the African ladder, while Ghana dropped one step to place 26th in the world and fourth in Africa, one step above Cote d'Ivoire, who are 28th in the world.Guinea, who beat the Harambee Stars of Kenya last month to top their group in the Nations
Cup/World Cup qualifier, gained two steps to place sixth in Africa and 39th in the world while Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria's group mate in the final lap of the World Cup/Nations Cupqualifier, and Mali occupy the seventh, eight and ninth positions in the continentrespectively.Teranger Lions of Senegal who bungled their 2010 World Cup/Nations Cup chances by drawing
with Gambia at home last month are 10th in Africa but are one step out of the top 50 teams in the world. They dropped two steps, owing osten-sibly to the draw against Gambia.Meanwhile, FIFA said that the 134 international matches played in the last few weeks,
including 94 qualifiers for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africaâ„¢, saw some dramatic changes in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.Spain continue to lead the way by some distance, but among the chasing pack, Germany (2nd,up 1) and Italy (3rd, down 1), the Netherlands (4th, up 1) and Brazil (5th, down 1),Argentina (6th, up 1) and Croatia (7th, down 1), and Russia (8th, up 1) and the Czech
Republic (9th, down 1) have all swapped places. England (10th, up 4) are back in the top ten, sharing tenth position with non-movers, Portugal.This month's major movers among the top 50 are Switzerland (27th, up 18), Serbia (30th, up
10), Ecuador (31st, up 11) and Slovakia (45th, up 15). Also returning to the top 50 alongwith Slovakia are Mali (49th, up 4). There is no change to the top 50 in terms of regionalrepresen-tation, as Senegal (51st, down 2) and Norway (54th, down 15) have dropped out ofthis group.Jamaica have made the biggest leap forward. Crucial 1-0 victories in FIFA World Cupâ„¢qualifiers against better-ranked oppo-nents from Mexico and Honduras, added to victory in afriendly, have catapulted the Reggae Boyz from 116th to 83rd place.
Israel (15th, up 1),Montenegro (115th, up 2) and the Philippines (157th, up 8) also enjoyed a successful month and have attained their highest ranking to date.A little piece of history has been made at the bottom of the table: Timor-Leste, who haveonly been affiliated to FIFA since 2005, achieved the first success of their shortfootballing existence by drawing 2-2 with Cambodia, thus climbing to 198th position.
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