Copa winners Brazil regain top spot
The latest edition of the FIFA world rankings were most markedly affected by the Copa America with champions Brazil (1st, up 2) reclaiming the ranking throne ahead of Argentina (2nd, up 3), who narrowly miss out on top spot despite racking up points on...
The latest edition of the FIFA world rankings were most markedly affected by the Copa America with champions Brazil (1st, up 2) reclaiming the ranking throne ahead of Argentina (2nd, up 3), who narrowly miss out on top spot despite racking up points on the back of an excellent run of form.
The two South American giants are followed by the top three teams at the 2006 FIFA World Cup - world champions Italy (3rd, down 2), runners-up France (4th, down 2) and third-placed Germany (5th, down 1).
Although a 50% devaluation of last year's World Cup matches has brought a significant loss of points for these three teams, they were able to hold on to their positions in the top five thanks to good recent performances in the race to qualify for Euro 2008.
Gold Cup finalists Mexico (10th, up 16) return to the top 10 after following up their Gold Cup exploits with an impressive showing at the Copa America.
United States (14th, up 2) failed to capitalise on Gold Cup glory, however, their disappointing Copa America campaign seeing them make only minimal progress up the ranking.
A number of teams have slipped after failing over the past 12 months to build on their World Cup performances, and this is particularly true for Ivory Coast (31st, down 11), Ghana (37th, down 18) and Switzerland (45th, down 20).
Recent victories in Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matches, meanwhile, see Nigeria (25th, up 7), Tunisia (40th, up 5) and Guinea (43rd, up 7) all make up ground.
Similarly, victories in the Copa America have led to climbs for Uruguay (19th, up 11), Paraguay (29th, up 8), Chile (47th, up 6), Peru (50th, up 14) and Venezuela (56th, up 14).
In Asia, the opening round of matches in the Asian Cup has seen the stock of three of the four host nations rise, with Thailand (107th, up 15), Vietnam (117th, up 25) and Indonesia (127th, up 16) all taking strides forward.
The leading Asian teams will be looking to make an impression on the August edition of the world rankings.
Meanwhile, Malta slipped three places down to 120 from the previous rankings. Malta is just in front of African trio Liberia, Rwanda and Eritrea. Fellow UEFA members Estonia are 124th in the list.