Despite not playing any international matches over the past month, Malta climbed four places in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking and is now 145th.

Among the other European countries, Malta is ranked third from bottom, just behind Moldova (122, down 1), Liechtenstein (123, up 7), Georgia (126), Luxembourg (136, down 7), Kazakhstan (up 1) and Azerbaijan (139, down 8). Lying behind Malta are San Marino (181, down 1) and Andorra (201). Malta faces Georgia in a friendly match on March 25 in Tbilisi and Azerbaijan in a EURO qualifier on March 28.

Meanwhile seven friendlies have been played since the last edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, five of them in the North, Central America and Caribbean zone. The majority of changes are a direct result of a devaluation of past results, however.

World champions Germany maintained their comfortable lead over Argentina and Colombia and the first move on the global ladder concerns Italy, who have climbed two positions at the expense of Spain (11th, down 1) to enter the top ten for the first time since June 2014.

Belgium are fourth, ahead of Netherlands, Brazil, Portugal, France, Uruguay and Italy.