Gambia slips in FIFA ranking

Scorpions of The Gambia

The Scorpions of Gambia on Thursday continued their freefall on the Federation of International Football Associations [FIFA] Coca Cola World rankings.

According to the rankings table the international world football governing body released from its Zurich, Switzerland headquarters, the underachieving Scorpions are now 147th after falling a place down over the past month.

The Scorpions, who have had a disastrous past few months, are ranked lowly 40th in Africa. They are only playing for pride in the qualifiers for next year’s FIFA World Cup following a 3-0 defeat to Africa’s powerhouse Ivory Coast.

With the Taifa Stars of Tanzania maintaining their 116th position in the global classification, the Gambia continues to be the lowest ranked side in their 2014 World Cup qualifying group.

Until October 2012, the Scorpions were consistently rated above Tanzania, but the East Africans have seen their rankings go progressively upwards since then while the Gambia has suffered a decline.

Morocco maintained its position of 74 in the world and 18 in Africa while Ivory Coast also maintained its global ranking of 12 and top in Africa.

They are leading Group C, a point clear of second-placed Tanzania, while Morocco lie third with two points, one ahead of bottom-placed Gambia.

Gambia will face Ivory Coast at home on 8th June and Morocco away on 15th June in the 2014 World Cup Group C qualifiers.

In comparison to last month’s action, there are only a few changes in the current edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. In many countries, the national championships are drawing to a close, which explains the small number of matches played at international level: only seven matches were played in the last month, all of which were friendlies.

Spain continues to top the table ahead of Germany and Argentina, followed by Croatia and Portugal. There are no changes in the top ten with Croatia, Portugal, Colombia, England, Italy, Netherlands and Ecuador maintaining their positions.

The only movers within the top 20 are Switzerland (14th, up 1) and Belgium (15th, up 1), who have both climbed one place, overtaking Mexico (16th, down 2). Belgium have achieved their highest-ever ranking, as have Albania, who have moved up five places to 43rd. Brazil are unmoved in 19th place – just one spot behind France – with both teams undoubtedly hoping to improve their respective standings.

Nigeria moved up three positions to enter the world’s top 30 and currently occupy 28th spot, leap-frogging the USA, Japan and Norway in the process. Senegal and St Lucia were the two biggest movers on the list. Senegal climbed 12 places to 76, while St Lucia also climbed 12 to occupy 140.

There is only a slight change to the composition of the top 50 by confederation. Honduras have jumped to 50th place, joint with Burkina Faso, meaning there are currently 51 teams in the top 50. CONCACAF now has five teams in the top 50, while there have been no changes for the other confederations (UEFA: 26; CONMEBOL: 9; CAF: 8; AFC: 3; OFC: 0).

More movement is to be expected in the table in June, when the teams qualified for the FIFA Confederations Cup play their first warm-up matches ahead of the showdown in Brazil.