Malta falls three places in FIFA Ranking

albania-malta140305JBFollowing the 2-0 defeat to Albania in a friendly match in Durres, Malta lost three places in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking which was published on Wednesday. Malta is now ranked 134th.

Among the other European countries, Malta is ranked 46th. Lying just ahead of Malta are Luxembourg (120), Cyprus (122) and Kazakhstan (127, up 1) while Liechtenstein (151, down 1), Faroe Islands (162, up 10), Andorra (199, down 1) and San Marino (207) are all behind Malta.

Malta has no scheduled fixtures until September when Malta plays its first match from Group H of the EURO 2016 qualifiers against Croatia away from home. However a friendly match before the end of the season is not excluded.

Meanwhile the March edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking has seen somewhat less movement than last month, with Spain, Germany, Argentina, Portugal and Colombia remaining unchanged in the top five spots.

Close behind them are Uruguay (6th, up 1) and Switzerland (7th, down 1), while Belgium (10th, up 1) have jumped up into the top ten at the expense of the Netherlands (11th, down 1). Meanwhile England (12th, up 3) and Russia (19th, up 3) have made good progress in the top 20.

Further down the table, Egypt are on the up. Their friendly victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina (21st, down 4) and the devaluation of last year’s defeat by Qatar have helped them climb 12 positions to 26th.

Photo: Copyright © Joe Borg