Sports
FIFA rankings: Eagles return to 50th in the world
The Super Eagles of Nigeria have been ranked among world’s top 50 teams in the first Coca-Cola FIFA rankings of the year, after dropping to 51 last December.
According to the rankings table on FIFA website on Thursday, Nigeria broke again into the first 50 by displacing Burkina Faso who went down by three spots. The Eagles garnered 619 points as against 616 it had in December 2016.
Nigeria are now the 7th team in Africa behind Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and DR Congo in that order.
Ghana continued to slide on the FIFA ranking as they dropped one place to 54th in the world but still ninth in Africa.
Read Also: AFCON 2019 Qualifiers: Nigeria draws S/Africa, Lybia and Seychelles
There are several movements in the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings, but the top 34 positions remain unchanged with Argentina (2016 Team of the Year), Brazil and Germany ranking first, second and third place, respectively.
FIFA, in a commentary on its web page acknowledged Nigeria’s rise into the top 50, and Saudi Arabia’s up move to 48. FIFA wrote: “Despite the overall stability of the January table, two new teams have broken into the Top 50. Saudi Arabia (48, up 6) and Nigeria (50, up 1) move up at the expense of Albania (51, down 2) and Burkina Faso (53, down 3).”
However, the three-time African Champions will be missing in the 2017 AFCON actions in Gabon, which kicks off on Saturday; and this may affect the steady rise Nigeria have enjoyed in the past few months.
The February edition of the World Rankings will be published on the 9th day of the month.
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