After suffering two defeats to Norway and Italy in two EURO 2016 qualifiers earlier this month, Malta lost two places and is ranked 157th in the October edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.

Malta is now ranked 50th among the other European countries, just behind Azerbaijan (126, down 31), Luxembourg (126, up 1), Kazakhstan (132, down 5) and Liechtenstein (155, up 17). The only countries lying behind Malta are the Faroe Islands (187, down 8), Andorra (202, up 1) and San Marino (208).

Malta will be facing Bulgaria next month in another EURO qualifier next month away from home.

Meanwhile the first three positions are unchanged from last month. Germany have held on to the top spot despite a difficult start to their UEFA EURO 2016 qualification campaign. Portugal (9th, up 2) are making their first appearance in the top ten since July and Belgium (4th, up 1) have leapfrogged the Netherlands (5th, down 1) to achieve their highest ranking yet.

Former table-toppers Spain (10th, down 2) have slipped down as far as tenth following their defeat against Slovakia (24th, up 16) and Switzerland’s (12th, down 2) poor start in the EURO 2016 qualifiers has seen them drop out of the top ten altogether.