Sports News – General Sport & Sport Extra

The just concluded Africa Cup of Nations has had a major sharkup on the new FIFA/Coca-Cola World ranking of the newyear. Spain continue to occupy the top position in the new ranking ahead of Brazil and the Netherlands, Egypt the Afric champion managed to climb 14 places to tenth place after they successfully defended their nations cup title at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations in Angola. As Africa champion Egypt is now in the first 1o team in the World, but they are going to miss the World Cup in South Africa later this year, because they did not qualify for the World Cup.

It is not only Egypt’s that climb to the top in the ranking, but also the second-highest of any African team since the introduction of the FIFA world ranking to break into the top fifth is Nigeria. Egypt have only been bettered by Nigeria, who reached fifth place in April 1994. Other African teams also benefited from their performances in Angola nations cup. In the top 20 of the ranking, semi-finalists Nigeria isnow ranked 15th in the world,  by climbling 7 position up and finalists Ghana, who lost to Egypt in the final now in 27th position in the new world ranking, by climbling  7 position up with considerable strides. Further down the ranking, Zambia now in 73rd position in the ranking, and climb 11 position up. Malawi also gain lots of pointsin the latest ranking, now in 82nd position in the world, and gain 17 position up which is a  good progress for them. Below is the table for the FIFA/Coca-Cola World ranking, as it was released by FIFA yesterday.

Ranking	Team	Pts Feb 10	+/- Ranking Dec 09		+/- Pts Dec 09
1	Spain	1627	0		0
2	Brazil	1568	0		0
3	Netherlands	1288	0		0
4	Italy	1209	0		0
5	Portugal	1176	0		0
6	Germany	1173	0		0
7	France	1117	0		0
8	Argentina	1082	0		-3
9	England	1076	0		0
10	Egypt	1069	14		237
11	Croatia	1053	-1		11
12	Greece	1030	1		14
13	Russia	1026	-1		0
14	USA	963	0		-17
15	Nigeria	956	7		108
16	Chile	955	-1		19
17	Mexico	947	0		16
18	Switzerland	924	0		0
19	Serbia	916	0		0
20	Cameroon	914	-9		-121
21	Uruguay	909	-1		0
22	Côte d’Ivoire	865	-6		-69
23	Australia	857	-2		-6
24	Ukraine	848	-2		0
25	Czech Republic	828	0		0
26	Denmark	827	2		7
27	Ghana	823	7		76
27	Israel	823	-1		0
29	Paraguay	806	0		0
30	Bulgaria	801	0		0
31	Algeria	784	-5		-39
32	Norway	772	0		12
33	Slovenia	767	-2		0
34	Honduras	759	3		21
35	Ecuador	753	2		15
36	Slovakia	752	-3		0
37	Republic of Ireland	746	-2		0
38	Romania	745	-2		0
39	Colombia	736	0		0
40	Japan	729	3		20
40	Northern Ireland	729	0		0
42	Turkey	728	-1		0
43	Sweden	727	-1		6
44	Gabon	706	4		46
45	Costa Rica	699	-1		-2
46	Scotland	665	0		0
47	Venezuela	646	3		0
48	Bosnia-Herzegovina	645	3		3
49	Korea Republic	634	3		9
49	Latvia	634	-4		-43

Onaly Egypt out of the top 10 we not be in the FIFA World Cup. The next release of FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking comes uo on 03 March 2010.

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