Nigeria Moves Up In
World Football Ranking
Stanley Madu, Lagos
A
bronze medal finish at the recently concluded Africa Cup of
Nations in Angola has seen Nigeria jump seven places to the
15th position in world football ranking and placing second
in Africa, behind Egypt.
Egypt climbed to their highest ever ranking of 10th
position.
Nigeria takes a long haul
The standing marks a major improvement to Nigeria's position,
from ranking 46th and 7th in Africa, when Coach
Berti Vogts coached her team in 2008, for the preceding Nations
Cup.
It is just two years ago and Coach Shuaibu Amodu's team has
slashed 31 places off its ranking.
Nations Cup finalists Ghana also moved up by 7 places to
27th in the world and 5th in Africa. Cameroon and Ivory
Coast paid dearly for failure to reach the semi-finals, dropping
to 4th and 5th in Africa, respectively.
Cameroon dropped by 9 places to 20th while Ivory
Coast slipped by six places to 22nd.
Zambia, which lost on penalties to Nigeria, moved 11
places to 73rd and Malawi also made significant progress,
moving by 17 places to 82nd.
A total of 82 international “A” matches were taken
into account for this edition of the ranking, 15 of which
were played in 2009.
In addition to the 29 matches played in the Africa Cup of
Nations, 11 continental qualifying matches and 42
friendlies were played.
Africa's Top 20
10 1 Egypt
15 2 Nigeria
20 3 Cameroon
22 4 Ivory Coast
27 5 Ghana
31 6 Algeria
44 7 Gabon
51 8 Burkina Faso
53 9 Mali
55 10 Tunisia
65 11 Morocco
67 12 Benin
70 13 Togo
73 14 Zambia
74 15 Uganda
81 16 South Africa
82 17 Malawi
82 18 Mozambique
88 19 Angola
90 20 Guinea
Yinka
