May FIFA World Rankings

The May update of Coca-Cola FIFA World Rankings showed very less activity owing to addition of just thirteen new matches. More than two-thirds of the total 209 nations retained their April Ranks

The significant change in the top 10 is that the World Cup hosts Brazil have risen to number 4, their best ranking in the last three years, sending Colombia, Uruguay and Argentina each one place down to 5th, 6th and 7th respectively, to top the continental teams. The only other big riser amongst World Cup participating nations is Honduras which climbed 2 places to 30

Chile and USA exchanged their ranks to place at 13 and 14, Nigeria pushed down Hungary to occupy 44th position. Korea Republic's rise of one place to 55th is the only other change in the rankings of World Cup teams

Spain, Germany and Portugal remain at their top three positions and Australia, at 59, remains the least ranked team in Brazil

The string of friendlies scheduled ahead of the world event would start shortly and may result in the final shuffle of ranks as the next update is scheduled just a week before the opening game of the global tournament

FIFA World Rankings are supposed to reflect the whereabouts of a particular team's plight at the World Stage and the Rankings are more significant in a major tournament season like the approaching 2014 FIFA World Cup. Apart from assessing relative strengths of the competing teams, Rankings are used to determine the seedings, draws at the World events...

FIFA updates the Rankings every month or so which reflect the performance of a team over the last 4 years... Since the Rankings were introduced in December 1992 when Germany was announced to be the Top team, Brazil held the top echelon for the longest time

The next update of the Ranking would be on the 6th of June... Spain is expected to retain the top position after the end of the Cup