Malta climbed three places in the FIFA/Coca-Cola Women’s World Ranking and is now ranked 88th.

The Malta women’s national team, who is ranked 37th in Europe, played two World Cup qualifiers, losing 0-2 to Azerbaijan, bouncing back with a 2-0 win away from home in Montenegro last month.

The next competitive matches for Malta will be the qualifiers for the UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 but the draws are yet to be made.

Meanwhile there have been changes aplenty in the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola Women’s World Ranking, which will be used to determine the seedings for the Draw for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023. The Draw will be held in Auckland (New Zealand) on 22 October, with the Draw for the Play-Off Tournament taking place eight days earlier.

The three teams at the top in the August 2022 ranking are still there, with one slight change in the order. Though USA (1st, – ) remain out front, Sweden (2nd, plus 1) have jumped into second place at the expense of Germany (3rd, minus 1). England (4th, – ) and France (5th, – ) complete the top five.

After their 2-0 defeat of USA on Tuesday, Spain (6th, plus 2) climb two places, while Netherlands (8th, minus 2) drop two. No fewer than nine teams between 11th and 20th changed positions, among them Belgium (20th, minus 1), who suffered the biggest points drop in the whole ranking (minus 32.46). Newly qualified for the intercontinental play-offs for Australia & New Zealand 2023, Portugal (23rd, plus 4) were the highest climbers in the Top 50 with a rise of four places and 54.19 points. However, nobody made more progress in the October ranking than Estonia (96th, plus 10), who leapt ten places into the top 100, while Bangladesh (140th, plus 7) rose seven themselves.