Despite impressing in the recently played friendly match with world third best football country, Brazil, Nigeria’s Super Eagles slipped by one spot in the FIFA World ranking for the month of October.
In the ranking table from the world football governing body, FIFA on Thursday, Nigeria garnered 1,481 points as against 1482 recorded in September. This places the country on the 35th position.
However, in spite of the drop, Nigeria still occupy the third spot in Africa behind Senegal and Tunisia who are placed 20th and 29th with 1,546 and 1,495 points, respectively.
On the global scene, although, 184 recent international matches have left their mark on the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, those at the very top remain unaffected by the movement around them.
Belgium (1st, unchanged) still leads the way from France (2nd, unchanged) and Brazil (3rd, unchanged), although top-ten rivals Uruguay (5th, up 1), Croatia (7th, up 1), Argentina (9th, up 1) have at least edged closer to the summit.
But the most significant rises are to be found further down the Ranking, where the in-form quartet of Ukraine (22nd, up 3), Japan (28th, up 3), Turkey (32nd, up 4) and Russia (37th, up 5) are among the more notable climbers.
Jumps of 10 or more places have also been made by a clutch of teams outside the top 50, namely Nicaragua (137th, up 11), South Sudan (162nd, up 11), Barbados (160th, up 10) and São Tomé and Príncipe (180th, up 10).
And there is fresh celebrate, too, for Kosovo (114th, up 5), who can again reflect with pride on their best Ranking position to date.
Samson Oyedeyi
