The India Men’s Football team has moved up by one place despite implementation of the new ranking model- ELO system. The Latest Fifa World Ranking is released and it sees The Sunil Chhetri led Indian team move up to 96th rank, making it 14th best ranked Asian team.
After complaints of various National team Boards either avoiding to play friendly games or playing too many friendly games against lower ranked teams in fear of losing points, Fifa decided to introduce the ELO system. The ELO method adds or subtracts points to a national team’s already existing total before a match. Hence, in theory, FIFA rankings will now change with each passing match. While the previous method of updating the rankings was once every month on a particular date.
The Indian Team is preparing for the AFC Asian Cup 2019 which kicks-off in January. India is placed in the Group A alongside hosts UAE (77), Bahrain (113) and Thailand (122). This means India is the second-best side in the group on the basis of the latest rankings. However, before the AFC Asian Cup, they will be participating in the SAFF Championship in September. They will meet Sri Lanka (200) and Maldives (150) in Group B of the tournament.
World Champions France has gained 6 ranks and takes the 1st position from Germany. Belgium has overthrown Brazil to 3rd and has taken 2nd position. World Cup Finalists Croatia has gained 16 ranks and is now placed 4th in the latest rankings. Gareth Southgate led the England team to a 4th place in the World Cup and replaces Argentina in the 5th Position in the Latest Fifa Rankings.
The Fifa World Cup saw many top-ranked teams underperform and consequently fall down in the rankings. Former World Champions Germany failed to reach the knock-out stages and fell 14 ranks and are now on 16th position. Lionel Messi led Argentina miss out in the top ten as the fall 6 ranks and are now on 11th position.
You can check the Latest World Rankings here.