World Cup Hosts up to Third Position
(FIFA.com) Thursday 5 June 2014
© Getty Images
There has been some movement in the last edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking before the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™:
Although the leading duo of Spain and Germany remain unchanged, Brazil will start the tournament in third place, having leapfrogged Portugal, while Argentina (5th, up 2) and Switzerland (6th, up 2) have each climbed two places and England (10th, up 1) have returned to the top ten at the expense of Greece (12th, down 2).
A glance at the respective strengths of the World Cup groups makes for interesting reading: taking the average ranks and points totals of each set of four teams into account, Group D (Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy) and Group G (Germany, Portugal, Ghana, USA) are the strongest groups. Group D is the only one containing three top-ten teams, while Group H (Belgium, Algeria, Russia, Korea Republic) has no such team.
Special mention must be made of Palestine (94th, up 71), whose four wins and one draw secured them the AFC Challenge Cup together with participation in a continental final competition for the first time, the AFC Asian Cup, due to be held in Australia next January. As a result, Palestine have achieved their highest-ever position in the ranking, as have Aruba (120th, up 35), Azerbaijan (83rd, up 2), Montserrat (166th, up 22) and South Sudan (185th, up 16).
The results of 112 “A” international matches have been taken into account for the current edition of the ranking, with 67 friendly matches plus continental qualifiers in CAF (26 matches), the AFC (16) and CONCACAF (3) being played up to 30 May.
(12th, down 2).
.
Quote:
WORLD RANKINGS
Rk.Team.Pts.+/-.Position
1 Spain 1485 0 Equal
2 Germany 1300 0 Equal
3 Brazil 1242 1 Up
4 Portugal 1189 -1 Down
5 Argentina 1175 2 Up
6 Switzerland 1149 2 Up
7 Uruguay 1147 -1 Down
8 Colombia 1137 -3 Down
9 Italy 1104 0 Equal
10 England 1090 1 Up
11 Belgium 1074 1 Up
12 Greece 1064 -2 Down
13 USA 1035 1 Up
14 Chile 1026 -1 Down
15 Netherlands 981 0 Equal
16 Ukraine 915 1 Up
17 France 913 -1 Down
18 Croatia 903 2 Up
19 Russia 893 -1 Down
20 Mexico 882 -1 Down
21 Bosnia and Herzegovina 873 4 Up
22 Algeria 858 3 Up
23 Denmark 809 0 Equal
23 Côte d'Ivoire 809 -2 Down
25 Slovenia 800 4 Up
26 Ecuador 791 2 Up
27 Scotland 786 -5 Down
28 Costa Rica 762 6 Up
29 Romania 761 3 Up
30 Serbia 745 0
|
.