Italy new leaders after dethroning Brazil

Italy are the new leaders of the world rankings, released yesterday by FIFA. Following a successful year for the 2006 World Cup winners, Italy toppled Brazil and reclaimed top spot for the first time since November 1993, ending Brazil's remarkable 55-month run at the top of the leaderboard.

For their part, the South Americans recently suffered a 0-2 friendly defeat to Portugal, who are currently ranked eighth.

There is otherwise no change in the top five: Brazil are followed by Argentina, France and Germany. Spain return to the top ten for the first time since October last year (10th, up 2).

Malta's bold performance in last week's 1-1 draw against Austria at the National Stadium was rewarded with a rise of four places. The national team is sharing the 114th position with Surinam, both on 229 points.

The other UEFA members trailing Malta in the rankings are Azerbaijan (130th, down three), Kazakhstan (145th, down three), Liechtenstein (160th, down one), Andorra (161st, up four), Luxembourg (181st, up 5), Faroe Islands (183rd, down two) and San Marino (196th, down one).

Moldova, who host Malta in a Euro 2008 Group C qualifier on March 24, gained two places in the list. They are now 83rd.

Large losses in February can be most clearly seen among the African teams: Cameroon (17th, down 6), Nigeria (36th, down 27), Egypt (42nd, down 23), Tunisia (45th, down 13) and Guinea (62nd, down 40) all slip down the ranking. All five teams have suffered from the depreciation in points of CAF Africa Cup of Nations matches played last month.

On a more positive note, several African teams improved their position over the past few weeks, with Ghana (22nd, up 6), Burkina Faso (57th, up 5) and 2010 World Cup hosts South Africa (59th, up 10) making notable gains.

Central America has also seen improvements, with four teams climbing more than ten positions in the last month due to successful qualifying campaigns for the next Gold Cup: Costa Rica (54th, up 12), Trinidad and Tobago (68th, up 19), Guatemala (87th, up 18) and El Salvador (125th, up 31).

Trinidad and Tobago can also lay claim to the highest point-scoring match in February's ranking due to their 3-1 defeat of fellow CONCACAF member Cuba in a recent continental qualifier.

This month's ranking covered 87 matches, most of them friendlies (74), with the remaining 13 games classed as continental qualifiers.