Sports
CHAN boost Eagles in January FIFA Rankings
Nifemi Daniel
Despite the early elimination of the Super Eagles from the African Nations Championship in Rwanda, Nigeria have risen three places in the latest rankings released by world soccer ruling body, FIFA on Thursday.
Nigeria is now ranked 12th in Africa and 63rd in the world after it amassed 2.5 ranking points to garner a total of 542.5 points for the month of January.
Prior to the CHAN tournament, the Eagles in January drew Angola 0-0 and defeated Ivory Coast 1-0 in friendly matches. These results boosted the team’s ratings coupled with the 4-1 win over Niger and 1-1 draw against Tunisia apart from the 1-0 loss to Guinea in Rwanda.
The FIFA ranking is a major criterion to be considered when the draw for the final round of the qualifying tournament for the 2018 World Cup is done in June.
Teams will be drawn in five groups to play on home and away basis with the overall group winners qualifying for the World Cup in Russia.
Meanwhile, Belgium has kept the No. 1 spot in the FIFA rankings among an unchanged top 18 for February.
With no international matches played by the 20 best teams so far this year, Belgium still leads second-place Argentina and third-place Spain.
World Cup champion, Germany is No. 4, followed by Chile and Brazil in a top 10 dominated by European and South American teams.
The three teams which made the biggest moves since the last rankings all come from Asia: Palestine at No. 110 (up 21 spots), Saudi Arabia at No. 55 (up 20 spots), and North Korea at No. 95 (up 18 spots).
A special mention goes to Rwanda (85, plus 6) in the latest ranking. The Wasps won three of their six matches played since early January, while also closing out 2015 with a shock-upset over African heavyweights, Côte d’Ivoire in an international friendly played on 16 December 2015.
The next FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking will be published on 3 March 2016.
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