Belgium have moved second in the FIFA rankings released yesterday, their highest ever position.

World champions Germany remain top, but Belgium have moved above Argentina who drop down to third.

The top 10 remain virtually the same although Switzerland have fallen from ninth to 11th as France return to the top ten.

Belgium are top of Group B in their Euro 2016 qualifying group and face second-placed Wales next week.

England drop a place to 15th, below Costa Rica.

As none of the teams in the top 20 played a match last month, all movements in terms of points and positions are down to a devaluation of past results.

This exercise benefited Malta who climbed four places to 145th in this month’s chart.

Pietro Ghedin’s team, who have not played since their 2-0 defeat to Azerbaijan in March, have a total of 154 points.

Lithuania, Malta’s opponents in Monday’s friendly at the National Stadium, are ranked 96th while Bulgaria, who face our national team in a Euro 2016 Group H qualifier today week,moved up five spots to 62nd.

This month, the biggest movers are to be found in the bottom half of the table, with Madagascar (113th, up 37) in particular benefiting from having recently played six matches and winning four to make the biggest gain of all 209 teams in the ranking.

In addition to Belgium, three other teams – Congo (47th, up 2), Timor-Leste (146th, up 5) and Bhutan (159th, up 4) – are also in their highest-ever position in the ranking.

A total of 44 matches were played in May, bringing the number of international ‘A’ matches played so far in 2015 to 264. More than half of the matches (26) played in May took place in Africa. The rise of Equatorial Guinea (50th, up 11) also means that CAF has increased its number of top 50 teams to 11.

The other confederations’ share of the top 50 is as follows: UEFA 29, CONMEBOL 6, CONCACAF 3, AFC 1 (down 1) and OFC 0.

Top 10
1. Germany 1,775 points; 2. Belgium 1,509; 3. Argentina 1,496; 4. Colombia 1,435; 5. Brazil 1,392; 6. Netherlands 1,378; 7. Portugal 1,229; 8. Uruguay 1,183; 9. France 1,164; 10. Spain 1,147.

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