Nigeria’s Super Eagles fall dip on Fifa ranking

Nigeria’s Super Eagles crashed nine spots to occupy a disheartening number 70 in the latest Fifa world ranking released on Thursday.

The Eagles were 61st in the month of June and 12th in the continent.

The latest ranking showed that Eagles are miserably placed in the 70th spot and poorly 17th on the continent while Algeria maintained their supremo number one spot on the African soil.

The Elephants of Ivory Coast are second in Africa and 35th in the world while Ghana’s Black Stars are rated third best in Africa and 36th in the world and Senegal are fourth and 41st in the world.

Other better and highly rated African countries are Egypt, Tunisia, Cameroon, Morocco, Congo DR, Mali, Cape Verde Island, Guinea and South Africa in the 5th – 13th positions respectively.

The other countries that occupied the 14th – 16th positions are Benin Republic, Uganda and Congo.

Nigeria once a powerhouse in African football are now overtaken by hitherto lowly rated countries like Benin Republic, Uganda, among others.

Argentina remain at the summit of the July Fifa world ranking but only after a tumultuous month of action that resulted in plenty of movement further down.

Belgium occupy the number two spot and Colombia, Germany, Chile and Euro 2016 champions, Portugal taking the number three – six positions.

The Euro 2016 runners-up, France, Spain, Brazil and Italy make up the top 10 spots in the world.

A total of 228 ‘A’ internationals contributed to the new order with those big events in Oceania, Europe and the Americas especially important in propelling nations upwards.

New Zealand emerged as the month’s biggest climbers moving up a whopping 54 places to 93rd on the back of an OFC Nations Cup victory that both qualified the All Whites for the 2017 Fifa Confederations Cup and furthered their Fifa World Cup qualifying ambitions.

The next Fifa world ranking will be published on Thursday, August 11, 2016.