Despite losing 1-4 to the Czech Republic at Ta’ Qali and 6-0 to Denmark at the Parken Stadium, Malta climbed two places in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking list which was published on Thursday. Malta is now 140th.

Malta is 49th in Europe, just behind Latvia (117, down 2), Luxembourg (127, down 1), Cyprus (134) and Kazakhstan (135, down 3). Lying behind Malta are Liechtenstein (158, down 2), Faros Islands (175, up 7), Andorra (200) and San Marino (207).

With the EURO 2016 draws scheduled to take place in February, Malta is expected to play a number of friendly matches in the coming months – the first one expected to be against the Faroe Islands next month.

Meanwhile in the top ten, only Spain’s position at the summit remains unchanged, while Germany have pushed Argentina out of second place. New entries into the top ten are Switzerland (7th, up 7) and England (10th, up 7), both thanks to their recent strong performances in the final group games in the World Cup qualifying. Italy, meanwhile, have paid heavily for their draw against Armenia, dropping four places to eighth.

The distribution of teams in Pot 1 for the World Cup Final Draw on December 6 is as follows: Brazil, together with Spain, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Belgium and Switzerland are definitely in Pot 1. If Uruguay win the intercontinental play-off against Jordan, they will also go into the first pot. However, if Jordan win, the decimal points difference between the Netherlands (1135.95) and Italy (1135.61) will see the Dutch take the last place in Pot 1.

This latest FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking has also determined which teams will be seeded for the European play-off draw for Brazil 2014, which will take place at the Home of FIFA in Zurich on Monday. The distribution of teams in Pot 1 for the European play-off draw will be the four highest-positioned teams, which are confirmed as follows: Portugal, Greece, Croatia and Ukraine. Pot 2 will include France, Sweden, Romania and Iceland.

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