By Uche Amunike
The Nigerian national football team, Super Eagles, has dropped a step in the current edition of the monthly ranking released by the Federation of International Football Associations, FIFA, Thursday.
The national team were cited in the 31st position in the August rankings and 4th position on the continent. They however, moved downhill to the 32nd position in the world, even as they maintained their position among African teams.
According to statistics revealed by FIFA, the Nigerian Super Eagles were part of the teams that played in 53 UEFA Nations League matches and 119 friendlies in the last international break, before the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
During this period, Jose Peseiro’s players were up against the Desert Foxes of Algeria, who beat the three-time African Champions 2-1, in spite of the controversy trailing their defeat.
The North Africans’ victory availed them their rise with four spots to the 37th position.
Senegal is in the 18th position and is still rated the highest ranked African team, while Morocco and Tunisia follows with 22nd and 30th positions respectively. Cameroon and Ghana will represent Africa at the Mundial, even though they are in distant 43rd and 61st positions respectively.
Brazil is the highest ranked team ahead of their bid for an unprecedented 6th World Cup crown in Qatar and the first in two decades. The Samba boys extended their points lead over Belgium in 2nd place with their big wins over Ghana and Tunisia.
Seated in the 3rd place, is the unbeatable Argentina who have remained undefeated in any competition since 2019, while France, the defending champions will be in this winter’s tournament as the fourth highest ranked international team in the world.
The only changes seen in the Top 29 were Italy and Spain swapping places in 6th and 7th respectively as Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark round out the top 10.
The analysis by FIFA portends that the biggest movers were teams that could not qualify for Qatar 2022. These are Scotland (40th, plus 5)and Azerbaijan (123rd, plus 5) and both countries rose five places.
Worthy mentions also go to Algeria (37th, plus 4), Georgia (78th, plus 4), Mauritania (103rd, plus 4), as well as Suriname (139th, plus 4), all of whom rose four places.
The next rankings by FIFA will be released on December 22nd, 2022.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has announced, via their official handle, that Nigeria will lock horns with the 1989 CONCACAF Champions, Costa Rica in an international friendly match billed to hold in November.
The three-time African champions were earlier scheduled to play Guinea Bissau at the African Cup of Nations qualifiers in the FIFA International break, however, after the Confederation of African Football postponed it to March 2023, the NFF are presently trying to arrange a Grade A friendly match for the Super Eagles.
The NFF tweeted that the match will hold between the two countries on November 10th at the Estadio Nacional in San Jose.
