TELL Magazine

Nigeria has dropped by five spots in the October edition of the FIFA /Coca-Cola World Ranking released on Thursday.

According to the October ranking on FIFA’s website, Nigeria now has 632 points as against 642 points it garnered in September, ranking 42^nd in the world and 9^th in Africa.

Nigeria, the African Champions fell 1-0 to Sudan and won by 3-1 in the return leg of the 2015 AFCON qualifiers, early this month.

The present ranking has Algeria as the highest-ranking team in Africa moving 5 spots with 989 points, ranking 15^th in the world, which is their highest-ever ranking.

Other African teams leading Nigeria are; Cote d’Ivoire, 842 points; Tunisia, 780 points; Cape Verde islands, 716 points; Ghana, 685 points; Egypt, 658 points; Cameroon, 637 points and Senegal, 635 points.

The first three positions are unchanged from last month. Germany have held on to the top spot despite a difficult start in their EURO 2016 qualification matches. Portugal, 9^th, up 2; are making their first appearance in the top ten since July and Belgium, 4^th, up 1; have overtaken the Netherlands, 5^th, down 1; to achieve their highest ranking yet.

Meanwhile former table-leaders Spain, have slipped down as far as the tenth position, following their defeat against Slovakia, which is placed 24^th, up 16; and Switzerland’s, 12^th, down 2; poor start in the EURO 2016 qualifiers has seen them drop out of the top ten altogether.

The ranking has no Asian team in the top 50, with Iran, 51^st, down 7; and Japan, 52^nd; down 4, having dropped to 51^st and 52^nd place respectively.

The breakdown of the top 50 per confederation now looks like this: UEFA 31, plus 3; CAF, 9, minus 2; CONMEBOL, 6, minus 1; CONCACAF, 4, plus 1.

141 matches have been taken into account for the October edition of the world ranking, exactly the same number as last month. Of those matches, 49 were European qualifiers, 28 were African qualifiers and ten were CONCACAF qualifiers, plus there were 54 friendlies.

In total, 667 matches have been taken into account over the course of the year so far.

The next FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking will be published on November 27, 2014.