Malta climbs four places in FIFA Ranking

malta-faroer131119Malta climbed four places in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking to 136th following the 3-2 win over the Faroe Islands earlier this month.

However Malta still lies in the 46th place among the other European countries. Lying just ahead of Malta are Latvia (119, down 2), Luxembourg (124, up 3), Cyprus (127, up 7) and Kazakhstan (132, up 3). Following Malta are Liechtenstein (152, up 6), Faroe Islands (170, up 5), Andorra (198, up 2) and San Marino (207).

Malta is now expected to play two friendly matches, one on March 5 and another in June, before the EURO 2016 qualifiers kick-off next season.

Meanwhile qualifying for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™, which saw 820 matches played in total, has drawn to a close and yet the situation at the top of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking remains unchanged, with Spain leading the way ahead of Germany, Argentina and Colombia.

Thanks to their two wins over Sweden in the European play-offs, Portugal have managed to secure fifth position and have climbed back into the top ten along with World Cup hosts Brazil, who won their friendly matches against Honduras (41st, down 7) and Chile (15th, down 3) and are currently sitting tenth.

Belgium (11th, down 6) and England (13th, down 3), however, have had mixed fortunes, with both teams remaining unbeaten in the World Cup qualifiers but then losing two friendlies on home ground.

All teams in the top 20, except for Ukraine (18th, up 2), have booked their tickets to Brazil next year and just three teams outside of the top 50 have managed to qualify for the 2014 showpiece, namely Cameroon (51st, up 8), Korea Republic (54th, up 2) and Australia (59th, down 2).

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