Spain maintain lead for third month

European champions Spain remained top of the FIFA world rankings for a third consecutive month yesterday, mainly due to last month's 3-0 friendly victory in Denmark.

With European countries not due back in competitive action until the start of 2010 World Cup qualification this weekend, Spain stayed ahead of world champions Italy and Euro 2008 runners-up Germany.

Italy climbed into second place in the rankings, based on national team performances over the past four years, despite being held to a 2-2 draw by Austria in another friendly.

Germany were 2-0 winners over Belgium last month but slipped down to third after losing points overall.

The only other change in the top positions saw Turkey climbing into the top ten for the first time in four years at the expense of fellow Euro 2008 semi-finalists Russia.

Brazil are the best ranked non-European team in sixth place, followed immediately by South American rivals Argentina.

Argentina were unable to benefit from their gold medal success at the Beijing Olympics because the men's tournament, predominantly involving players aged under 23, is not included in the FIFA ranking system.

Malta lost two positions in this month's list and are now ranked 133rd, just ahead of Barbados and Eritrea. Dusan Fitzel's team, who lost to Estonia 2-1 in a friendly international in Tallinn last month, have 209 points.

FIFA list

1. (1) Spain 1,565
2. (3) Italy 1,339
3. (2) Germany 1,329
4. (4) Netherlands 1,295
5. (5) Croatia 1,266
6. (6) Brazil 1,252
7. (7) Argentina 1,230
8. (8) Czech Rep. 1,134
9. (9) Portugal 1,120
10. (13) Turkey 1,033
11. (12) France 1,019
12. (10) Russia 1,013
13. (11) Romania 1,007
14. (15) Cameroon 999
15. (14) England 991
16. (16) Scotland 976
16. (17) Bulgaria 976
18. (18) Greece 921
19. (20) Israel 874
20. (19) Ghana 864.
(Last month's position in brackets)