The leadership of the world rankings has changed hands following the completion of the preliminary competition for the 2010 World Cup, with European champions Spain overtaking Brazil, who had been at the top since July.

Portugal (5th, up 5) and France (7th, up 2) have benefited greatly from the results of the World Cup play-off matches, which are valuable in terms of points, while the teams that qualified in October, Argentina (8th, down 2) and England (9th, down 2), have lost ground.

This month's winners also include Cameroon (11th, up 3), Greece (12th, up 4) and Uruguay (19th, up 6), the last two also thanks to a massive gain in points from the play-off matches.

Of the top 20, only Croatia (10th, down 2) and Russia (13th, down 1) will not be taking part in the finals in South Africa and only four of the qualified teams do not feature among the top 50 (South Korea, New Zealand, North Korea and South Africa).

Malta dropped another three places in this month's list and are currently ranked 149th.

A total of 104 'A' international matches have been played since the October edition of the rankings, taking the number of matches evaluated this year to 805.

In all, 22 matches, including 12 play-off matches, were held to bring down the curtain on the preliminary competition for the 2010 World Cup and 13 qualifiers for the next AFC Asian Cup.

Top 20

1. Spain 1,622; 2. Brazil 1,592; 3. Netherlands 1,279; 4. Italy 1,215; 5. Portugal 1,181; 6. Germany 1,170; 7. France 1,122; 8. Argentina 1,085; 9. England 1,063; 10. Croatia 1,050; 11. Cameroon 1,035; 12. Greece 1,028; 13. Russia 1,019; 14. US 980; 15. Mexico 931; 16. Ivory Coast 927; 17. Chile 926; 18. Switzerland 924; 19. Uruguay 901; 20. Serbia 900.