India are ranked 107th in the most recent edition of the Fifa Men’s Rankings, slipping 10 places from the 97th place that they had held prior to the Tri-Nation Series last month.
The 1-1 draw against 160th-ranked St Kitts and Nevis in Mumbai cost the Blue Tigers dearly as Stephen Constantine’s men earned 63.75 points for the fixture, bringing their average ranking points down sharply.
While the wins over Mauritius and Macau yielded maximum points, the slip-up against St Kitts cost the team 25 points, as they now have 316, as opposed to 341.
India also slipped to 13th in the Asian confederation, behind Palestine. According to an AIFF official, India’s proposed friendly with the Middle-Eastern nation may be cancelled due to a concern surrounding a potential loss in ranking points, in case of an adverse result.
The reigning world champions Germany edged ahead of Brazil following two impressive World Cup qualifying victories over Czech Republic and Norway, and head a table much changed after the recent Russia 2018 preliminaries.
Belgium have climbed four places to enter the top five on the back of qualifying for next year’s finals. Portugal, for their part, are up three to third and, further down, no fewer than 23 teams jumped ten places or more.
Among the most notable climbers are the Cape Verde Islands (67, up 47), Luxembourg (101, up 35), Bolivia (46, up 22) and Denmark (26, up 20), this on the back of stunning results in qualifying against South Africa, France, Chile and Poland respectively.
Luxembourg are also one of four teams to have reached an all-time high position in the latest Ranking, along with Peru (12, up 3), Northern Ireland (20, up 3) and Syria (75, up 5).
