On Thursday 6 OctoberFIFA has published its last ranking of nations before the 2022 World Cup. This comes after a busy month of September with the Nations League for European teams and friendly matches for teams from other confederations.

At world level, the only notable change is Italy’s 6th place, ahead of Spain, reports the sports website Afrik Foot. In Africa, the trio of Senegal, Morocco and Tunisia, three teams that qualified for the World Cup, remains unchallenged, followed by Nigeria.

However, there was a change in the 5th place in the continental ranking, where Algeria made a comeback. The Fennecs have been enjoying their revival since June with 5 consecutive wins, including against Guinea (1-0) and Nigeria (2-1) recently. In a symbolic move, Djamel Belmadi’s team thus doubled their lead before the World Cup against Cameroon, who denied them Qatar, as well as against Egypt. The Indomitable Lions are paying for their disappointing month of September with defeats against Uzbekistan (2-0) and South Korea (1-0).
Like Algeria, Mauritania has moved up four places in the world rankings, while Côte d’Ivoire’s victories over Togo (2-1) and Guinea (3-1) have given Africa its ninth representative in the world’s top 50. Further down the field, Cape Verde (71st) doubled the DR Congo (73rd).

The next FIFA ranking will be published on 22 December after the World Cup.

The world’s top 10

1.Brazil