Argentina and Belgium held on to first and second place respectively on the latest FIFA world rankings, while a flurry of international matches – largely among European teams focused on their final preparations for the Euro 2016 taking place from June 10 to July 10 – resulted in a number of shifts in the top 50 this month.
Forty-five international friendlies were included in calculating the latest ranking, along with four 2018 World Cup qualification matches for the OFC region.
Leading the changes were Colombia (3, plus 1) and Germany (4, plus 1) who leapfrogged Chile (5, minus 2) to reshuffle the order of the top five teams slightly.
Austria (10, up 1), who on Tuesday beat Malta 2-1 in a pre-Euro 2016 friendly, meanwhile, returned to the top 10 at the expense of England (11, minus 1) while elsewhere in Europe, Italy (12, plus 3), France (17, plus 4) and Ukraine (19, plus 3) all enjoyed positive momentum in the top 20.
Switzerland’s (15, minus 1) loss to Belgium on May 28 saw them slip one position into 15th, while Turkey’s defeat to England on May 22 cost them five places on the world ranking (18).
Northern Ireland secured 25th position this month, their best-ever performance since the official world ranking’s introduction in 1993.
The ‘Green and White Army’ will be making their debut at the European Championship and last appeared in an international competition some 30 years ago at the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico.
The top movers were Slovakia and Madagascar.
The Europeans climbed eight positions to take 24th place, while the island nation located off Africa’s southeast coast climbed 29 positions into 108.
Meanwhile, Malta dropped another place in this month’s chart.
Pietro Ghedin’s team, who suffered a 6-0 defeat to the Czech Republic last week but produced a much-improved performance in the narrow loss to Austria, are now placed 166th with a total of 141 points.
Top 10
1. Argentina 1,503; 2. Belgium 1,384; 3. Colombia 1,328; 4. Germany 1,310; 5. Chile 1,293; 6. Spain 1,267; 7. Brazil 1,257; 8. Portugal 1,181; 9. Uruguay 1,150; 10. Austria 1,077.