Iran dropped to 46th spot in FIFA Ranking

The latest edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking is once again dominated by Spain, who continue to hold on to top spot with a comfortable cushion of more than 200 points. Their nearest challengers are once again world champions Italy (2nd, up 1), who have swapped places with Germany (3rd, down 1), although the Netherlands (4th, no change) are also within touching distance of the Italians and the Germans.

The line-up at the top could change dramatically over the next few weeks, however, with the European World Cup qualifiers due to take centre stage now that more than 300 of the 850-plus qualifiers have already been played in the other confederations. Europe's total of 268 matches will account for more than 30 per cent of the games in the entire preliminary competition for 2010.

Positions four to nine remain unchanged, although Turkey (10th, up 3) have climbed back into the top ten. After an absence of just one month, Saudi Arabia (48th, up 4) are back in the top 50. The major movers in the upper reaches, however, are Mexico (24th), whose climb of eight places sees them overtake the USA (28th, up 3) as the highest CONCACAF team.

Further down, a number of teams have made considerable progress since last month, including Gabon (62nd, up 12), Algeria (76th, up 14), Trinidad and Tobago (80th, up 12) and New Caledonia (95th, up 21), the latter having benefited from a devaluation of past results to once again replace New Zealand (111th, no change) as the highest Oceanian representatives, just as they did exactly one year ago.

Ranking	Team	Pts Sep 08	+/- Ranking Aug 08		+/- Pts Aug 08
1	Spain	1565	0		8
2	Italy	1339	1		19
3	Germany	1329	-1		-14
4	Netherlands	1295	0		-4
5	Croatia	1266	0		-16
6	Brazil	1252	0		10
7	Argentina	1230	0		11
8	Czech Republic	1134	0		-12
9	Portugal	1120	0		-2
10	Turkey	1033	3		23
11	France	1019	1		7
12	Russia	1013	-2		-10
13	Romania	1007	-2		-14
14	Cameroon	999	1		5
15	England	991	-1		-12
16	Scotland	976	0		-12
16	Bulgaria	976	1		46
18	Greece	921	0		25
19	Israel	874	1		-2
20	Ghana	864	-1		-28
21	Egypt	841	0		-10
22	Uruguay	817	2		4
23	Côte d'Ivoire	814	2		12
24	Mexico	807	8		57
25	Paraguay	801	-3		-19
26	Ukraine	799	2		13
27	Nigeria	791	0		3
28	USA	788	3		21
29	Colombia	785	-6		-31
30	Poland	779	-1		1
31	Sweden	773	-5		-28
32	Northern Ireland	761	0		11
33	Serbia	746	1		-3
34	Norway	733	-5		-45
35	Japan	707	0		-20
36	Denmark	696	0		-26
37	Morocco	671	0		-19
38	Republic of Ireland	662	3		-4
39	Australia	655	-1		-30
40	Chile	654	-1		-26
41	Guinea	650	-1		-20
42	Finland	649	0		-4
43	Switzerland	644	1		-1
44	Tunisia	643	3		14
45	Senegal	623	-2		-26
46	Iran	614	-1		-29
47	Mali	604	1		-20
48	Saudi Arabia	573	4		-2
48	Moldova	573	1		-49
50	Hungary	561	0		-30