Nepal's remarkable rise in FIFA rankings

REPUBLICA

KATHMANDU, April 14: Nepal moved up 22 spots in the FIFA rankings to 150 Wednesday following the national team´s good form and success in recent international matches.

Nepal had defeated Bhutan in two international friendlies last month and also registered a 1-0 win over Afghanistan in the AFC Challenge Cup group D qualifiers last Thursday for the remarkable rise in rank released by football´s world governing body.

Nepal and Afghanistan are the only countries besides Israel, Belgium and Albania to leapfrog twenty places in the newly released rankings, taking into account the international matches played over a period of about a month.

Afghanistan also made a remarkable progress climbing 21 places to 174 while Israel and Belgium, currently ranked 33 and 37 respectively, were the best movers with each country climbing 25 spots. Albania, ranked 50, moved 23 places, one more than Nepal.

Nepal´s ranking was 172 last year and within the same range in the first three months of 2011. The highest ranking Nepal ever had was from December 1993 to February 1994 when the national team was placed at 124. The lowest ranking was in February 2008 when Nepal slumped to 188.

Earlier in December 1993 Nepal had climbed 33 spots, the best move ever achieved, while the worst was in April 2007 moving down 16 places. With the release of new rankings, Nepal are ranked 28 out of the 46 member-nations in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Japan that stand 13th in the world are at the top of the AFC rankings.

Nepal´s ranking in the South Asian region is third out of 8 nations, including the newly inducted Afghanistan. The Maldives, ranked 143 in the world, lead the South Asian region followed by India, who dropped one spot below to 146.

Meanwhile, world champions Spain maintain the lead at the top of the table followed by the Netherlands. Five time champions Brazil moved two places up to the third while Germany and Argentina both dropped one place to stay at fourth and fifth spots respectively.

England remained at the sixth place, Italy climbed two spots to ninth while Portugal are one place ahead of the Italians. Another European heavyweight France slipped one spot to 19.