The Africa Cup has had a major impact on the first FIFA world ranking of the year.
While Spain continue to occupy top spot ahead of Brazil and the Netherlands, Egypt managed to climb 14 places to 10th after successfully defending their title in Angola on Sunday.
This is not only Egypt's highest-ever position in the ranking, but also the second-highest of any African team since the introduction of the ranking. The only other African country to have occupied a better position were Nigeria who reached fifth place in April 1994.
Other African teams also benefited from their performances in Angola, fifa.com reported. In the upper echelons of the ranking, semi-finalists Nigeria (15th, up 7) and finalists Ghana (27th, up 7) made considerable strides.
Ahead of the World Cup in South Africa, an analysis of the strengths of each of the eight groups will doubtless prove interesting.
In general, it is noteworthy that Group G is the only one to have two teams from the top ten (Brazil and Portugal), while Italy are the only representatives from the top 20 in Group F.
Bearing in mind that only two teams from each group will go on to the round of 16, the "tightness" of the groups and the gap between the second and third team could prove particularly significant.
With this in mind, two groups promise to be particularly exciting: there are very few points separating Mexico and Uruguay in Group A and Chile and Switzerland in Group H.
Meanwhile, Malta moved up two places in the ranking list despite not being in action last month. The national team is now placed 144th in the world with 129 points.
A total of 82 international "A" matches were taken into account for this edition of the rankings, 15 of which were played in 2009 (total of 849 "A" matches played in 2009).
In addition to the 29 matches played in the Africa Cup, 11 continental qualifying matches and 42 friendlies were also played.
Top 20 positions