Rwanda has moved six places up to 85th in the world according to the latest FIFA Rankings released on Thursday, February 4th in Zurich, Switzerland.
Rwanda has accumulated 402 points with six matches played in the January month.
Two of the matches were hosted at the Stade Umuganda in Rubavu where Rwanda played a 1-all darw against Cameroon before registering a 1-0 win over DR Congo in international friendly match ahead of the fourth African Nations Championships staged in the country.
In the CHAN tournament, Rwanda registered a 1-0 win over Cote d’Ivoire, defeated Gabon 2-0 and lost 4-1to Morocco in the group stage before advancing to the quarter final where they lost 2-1 to DR Congo.
In the region, Rwanda is second to leaders Uganda who dropped to 70th but still tops the CECAFA region. Kenya is third in 99th, followed by Burundi (119th), Ethiopia (124th), Tanzania (125th), Sudan (136th) and South Sudan (140th).
Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia are joint 204th on the log.
Rwanda’s AFCON rivals Mauritius in next month’s Group H qualifiers are ranked 172nd in the world.
According to FIFA, the three most impressive teams for February’s ranking all come from Asia: Palestine (110, plus 21), Saudi Arabia (55, plus 20) and Korea DPR (95, plus 18) enjoyed the biggest advances since the last world ranking.
Teams from Asia, Africa and Central American dominated the list of teams that improved by more than five positions for February, namely: Cape Verde Islands (33, plus 6), Costa Rica (31, plus 6) , Qatar (78, plus 6), Honduras (91, plus 7), Mozambique (102, plus 7), Belize (120, plus 8), Swaziland (127, plus 6), Kuwait (133, plus 8), and Nepal (188, plus 8).
A special mention goes to Rwanda (85, plus 6) in the latest ranking. The Wasps won three of their six matches played since early January, while also closing out 2015 with a shock-upset over African heavyweights Côte d’Ivoire in CHAN tournament played on January 16, 2016.
CHAN 2016 finalists, Democratic Republic of Congo have climbed three places to 57th with 570 points.
Algeria and Ghana also drop to 36th and 41st respectively. Despite progressing to CHAN 2016 quarter finals, Zambia dropped by nine places to 76th.
Criteria for arriving at a country’s placing/position on the monthly rankings is determined by the result(s) and number of matches placed by a particular country in the month under review.
The importance of the match, strength of the opposition and confederation strength weights are some of the other factors Fifa consider in arriving at a country’s eventual placing/position on the rankings.
The top five countries, in descending order in the World rankings are Belgium, Argentina, Spain, Germany and Chile. Belgium still maintains the number one status quo in the whole world with 1494 points.
Argentina, Spain, Germany, Chile, Brazil, Portugal, Columbia, England and Austria complete the top ten footballing countries.
There is no change in the top 18 countries in the world but a significant fall for Africa’s best country, Cote D’Ivoire who slip 9 places to 28th.
The next FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking will be published on 3 March 2016.