After holding Bulgaria in a 1-1 draw, Malta climbed nine places in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking list which was published on Thursday. Malta is now ranked 148th.
Among the other European countries, Malta is ranked 51st as the Faroe Islands climbed no less than eighty-two places to 105th. Just ahead of Malta are Moldova (120, down 1), Georgia (126, down 9), Luxembourg (129, down 3), Liechtenstein (130, up 25), Azerbaijan (135, down 9) and Kazakhstan (139, down 7). Lying behind Malta are San Marino (180, up 28) and Andorra (201, up 1).
Malta’s next EURO 2016 qualifier will be against Azerbaijan on March 28 but the national team could play a friendly match a few days before.
Meanwhile the November edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking reveals very little change in the top ten, with the top seven positions unaltered from last month and world champions Germany still out in front ahead of Argentina and Colombia. France, however, are now in joint seventh place together with Portugal (7th, up 2). In the top 20, England (13th, up 7), Romania (15th, up 6) and Czech Republic (17th, up 5) have all made good progress.
Further down the ranking, the Faroe Islands (105th, up 82) have made considerable progress thanks to their surprise victory over Greece (25th, down 7) in the UEFA EURO 2016 qualifiers. Other teams to have climbed more than 20 places include San Marino (180th, up 28) and Liechtenstein (130th, up 25). For San Marino, their draw with Estonia sees them climb off the bottom of the table for the first time in six-and-a-half years.