2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil

The last update before the World Cup, the June edition of FIFA/Coca Cola World Cup Rankings has been announced and due to a flurry of friendlies played in the last month, there's been a few shuffles in the positions. Spain and Germany still sit on the top two positions but the two Portuguese speaking nations , hosts Brazil and Portugal, exchanged their positions at 3 and 4

Argentina and Switzerland both gained two positions and the biggest loser in the top ten Colombia dropped three positions to be placed at 8 below Uruguay at 7. Four time champions Italy maintained its position while England found themselves in top ten at the expense of Greece, who lost 2 places to go below Belgium
Out of the thirty-two nations appearing in the World Cup, five nations retained their positions, including Netherlands and Nigeria while Costa Rica has been the biggest riser, gaining six positions to 28. Bosnia went up four places to 21 and Algeria by three places to 22. On the other end of the coin, Iran and Cameroon lost six positions each to 43 and 56 respectively, the biggest fall for the World Cup nations while Honduras and Australia fell by three positions, ending up at 33 and 62 respectively. The Socceroos cemented their position as the worst ranked team of the tourney

Outside the World Cup, Palestine has gained a phenomenal 71 places up to 94th position, their best rank ever while Saudi Arabia lost 15 positions to 90th rank. There have been a total of 112 new matches that were considered into the rankings

The next update of the Ranking would be after the World Cup, Spain is expected to retain the top position after the end of the Cup

About 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

Spain and Germany remained the top two teams to beat but Portugal claimed the podium evicting Argentina down three ranks to joint 6th place with Brazil in the April edition of the World FIFA Rankings announced today. Colombia and Uruguay are the top South American sides ahead of the fan favorites although there isn't much room for complacency here as the top four CONMEBOL teams are seperated by just 12 points.

Greece gained 3 positions to complete the top 10 behind Switzerland and Italy. Netherlands is biggest loser of the top 16 world cup teams  dropping down 4 places to 15th Rank

Spain still have a cushion of 120.31 points at the top of the table and barring any major upsets, will retain its top billing at the end of the cup

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 8th of May and then another one before the World Cup on the 6th of June... Spain is expected to retain the top position after the end of the Cup