The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
21 December 2011
Dar es Salaam — Taifa Stars are seemingly heading back to the “ICU” after yet another fall in the latest Fifa world rankings.
Stars, who have been making one step forward and two steps back, now occupy the 137th (38th in Africa) position after dropping a place, thus trailing behind Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan and Kenya.The slide, though slight summarizes Taifa Stars’ lacklustre year. They only went up in March, April and August.
The latest slip is attributed to Stars shoddy performance at the Cecafa Tusker Challenge Cup, which saw them win two matches only out five outings.Uganda Cranes, who won the Cecafa championship, continue to rule the region after rising to the 89th place from 91.Kenya, though disappointed their fans in the Cecafa tournament, made a giant leap of 13 places, making them the best movers in the region.Harambee Stars are ranked 120th .
Ranked 114th last month, Rwanda moved to the 106th position thanks to a rollercoaster performance at the Cecafa Tusker Challenge Cup. They won all matches except the final.
Cote d’Ivoire are the best ranked African team on position 16 with 912 points, Ghana are placed 29th with 761 points a slot above Algeria who are placed 30th with 758 points.
World and European champions Spain remain unchallenged at the top of the table, followed by the Netherlands, Germany and Uruguay, who are all still competing in an exciting head-to-head battle for second place.
As the top team at year-end, Spain are the Team of the Year for the fourth year in a row.The title of Best Mover of the Year is claimed by Wales (48th, up 2) who, with 330 points, won the most points in 2011.The Welshmen find themselves back in the top 50 thanks to their outstanding performances in the second half of the year, with wins over Montenegro, Switzerland and Bulgaria in the EURO 2012 qualifiers.
December saw the following teams achieve their highest position ever since the introduction of the world ranking: Bosnia-Herzegovina (20th, up 3), Panama (49th, up 2), Estonia (57th, up 1) and American Samoa (186th, up 18), who claimed their first-ever win in a World Cup qualifying match.
A comparison with the continental composition of the top 50 in December 2010 reveals various changes: South America (9, up 3), Concacaf (3, up 1) and Asia (4, up 1) have grown stronger, while Africa (7, down 3) and Europe (27, down 2) have fewer teams in the top 50 than they had a year ago.
The top-ranked teams from each of the confederations are Spain (1st), Uruguay (4th), Côte d’Ivoire (16th), Japan (19th), Mexico (21st) and New Zealand (119th).The results of 57 new ‘A’ international matches have been recognised in the current edition, of which 51 were friendly matches and the remaining six were OFC World Cup qualification matches.In total, 1,046 matches were taken into account over the course of the year.
AllAfrica – All the Time