FIFA women’s rankings: Germany drop to third, Nigeria now 38th as U.S. stay top

Germany dropped out of the top two in the FIFA women’s rankings for the first time since 2009 after a poor run of results while the U.S. retained top spot.

The U.S. team were unbeaten as they won this month’s SheBelieves Cup on home soil, while Germany failed to register a single victory at the annual invitational tournament.

England’s second place in the tournament under new manager Phil Neville secured them No.2 spot in the rankings for the first time.

France rose to fifth after finishing third in the SheBelieves Cup.

Netherlands remain at No.7 while Sweden rose to ninth after being named joint winners of the Algarve Cup.

Canada, who finished fifth at the event, climbed to fourth in the rankings.

Japan, who won the World Cup in 2011 and finished runners-up in 2015, have dropped out of the top 10 for the first time since 2007.

They lost two of their four matches this year.

Cyprus Cup champions Spain rose to 12th, their best yet.

Nigeria dropped one step to 38 on the rankings, after amassing 1608 points, five less than the 1613 it gathered a month earlier.

But Nigeria is still Africa’s number one on the CAF rankings, with Ghana and Cameroon maintain their second and third places respectively.

Top 10 FIFA women’s rankings (previous positions in brackets):

U.S. (1)

England (3)

Germany (2)

Canada (5)

France (6)

Australia (4)

Netherlands (7)

Brazil (8)

Sweden (10)

Korea DPR (11)