Gambia climb five places in FIFA world ranking

After months of persistent slide on FIFA’s monthly ranking, The Gambia has moved up on FIFA’s ranking.

According to FIFA’s latest ranking for the month of June, the Scorpions moved up by five places to the 108th spot in the world and two places to 28th in Africa, with 320 points. The rise is coming after last week’s 1-1 draw against the Atlas Lions of Morocco during the World Cup qualifiers, played at the Independence Stadium in Bakau.

World Cup winner, Spain, maintains the lead on FIFA’s list which ranks 206-nations, while Uruguay and Germany swapped places to be second and third. Netherlands, Brazil, England, Argentina, Croatia, Denmark and Portugal, follow subsequently.

Cote d’Ivoire is the top African nation on the list, although they dropped one step to 16th position, while Ghana is ranked 25th, dropped three places. Gambia’s opponents in the 2013 African Cup of nations qualifiers, Algeria are 32 (up by six steps), Libya (42, up by four steps), Mali (43, dropped four steps); Zambia (43, dropped by three steps) and Tunisia (46, up by 10 places).Others are Egypt (48, up by nine spots); Gabon (49, dropped seven steps); and Sierra Leone (59, up by two spots).

A total of 115 matches have been taken into account for the current edition of the FIFA World Ranking, 28 of which were Brazil 2014 qualifiers and the remaining 87 friendlies.

The next FIFA rankings are to be released July 4, which will be after UEFA EURO 2012, a tournament that could cause movement in the rankings. The FIFA world rankings are determined by points awarded from match results in a three-year period, with more recent games given greater weight. Teams get additional points for playing relatively strong opponents.