Nigeria’s weak run of form in the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers may have backfired as they have dropped five places from the 37th position they occupied in September to the 42nd position in the latest FIFA rankings released on Thursday.
The Eagles garnered 632 points in the current rankings as against the 642 points they had in September.
Nigeria sit third in Group A of the Morocco 2015 AFCON qualifiers with four points from four matches. They lost to Congo at home, drew with South Africa in Cape Town, lost to Sudan by a lone goal in Khartoum before beating the same team 3-1 in Abuja.
Consequently, Nigeria are now the ninth placed team in Africa from the sixth position they occupied last month.
The highest movers in the table were Togo who added 314 points to what they had in September to arrive at 559 points, which also moved them up 73 places from 125 to 52. They are the tenth placed team on the continent.
Algeria, who are the topmost team in Africa, moved up five places from September’s 20 to 15 in the latest rankings with 989 points.
Cot d’Ivoire, who are second on the continent, dropped three places from 22 to 25 with 842 points while Tunisia remained in last month’s 31st position and Africa’s third with 780 points.
Cape Verde are the fourth placed team in Africa as they climbed up eight spots from September’s 41 to 33 with 716 points thereby displacing Ghana, who were last month’s fourth placed team, to the fifth position. Ghana dropped 2 places on the world rankings as they have 685 points to become the 35th team from last month’s 33rd position which they had occupied.
Cameroon moved up two places to become the 40th best team in the world and the seventh best team in Africa with 637 points while Senegal dropped five spots with 635 points to 41 from last month’s 36 and are the eight placed team in Africa.
At the top of the rankings, there was no much change in the top ten.
World Cup winners Germany retained their first position, which they had held since July, with 1669 points.
Argentina and Colombia maintained their second and third spots but the Netherlands slipped a place to fifth as they were overtaken by Belgium, who were fifth in September.
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