Australia move up seven places into 50= after their FIFA World Cup Qualifying victories over the Solomons and still lead OFC teams, with New Zealand dropping back two places to 111.
Tahiti remain the leading Pacfic Island nation occupying 137, closely followed by Solomon Islands 138 and Fiji 139, all three nations dropped two places from their August 2005 ranking.
Vanuatu move to 148 (-1), Papua New Guinea remain at 165, also unchanged is Samoa 178, Tonga 184, and New Caledonia 185.
The Cook Islands drop a place to 193 and American Samoa remain at 205.
Brazil still top the rankings with the Netherlands replacing Argentina in second spot. A Zinedine Zidane inspired France move up three places to 6, and Sweden’s five place jump sees them enter the top ten after an absence of exactly nine years.
Outside the top 50, a number of teams jump ten places or more, including Togo (54, +12), Venezuela (57, +10), Bosnia-Herzegovina (67, +11) and Scotland (74, +12). Northern Ireland (101, +15) are also part of this select group, not least thanks to their sensational victory over England which also secures this month’s highest points tally.
FIFA/ Coca-Cola World Rankings
1. Brazil
2. Netherlands
3. Argentina
4. Czech Rep.
5. Mexico
6. France
7. USA
8. Spain
9. Portugal
10. Sweden
50. Australia
111. New Zealand
137. Tahiti
138. Solomon Islands
139. Fiji
148. Vanuatu
165. Papua New Guinea
178. Samoa
184. Tonga
185. New Caledonia
193. Cook Islands
205. American Samoa
The Ranking System
The FIFA/ Coca-Cola World Ranking evaluates all matches played by senior national teams (World Cup finals matches, World Cup premliminary matches, Confederation championship matches, Confederation championship preliminary matches, friendly matches).
The calculation of a team’s points is based on the following six criteria;
1. Winning, drawing, and losing
2. Number of goals
3. Home or away match
4. Importance of match (multiplication factor)
5. Strength of the opponent
6. Regional strength (multiplication factor)
Click the link for the full FIFA/ Coca-Cola World Rankings
*The next FIFA/ Coca-Cola World Ranking will be published on 19 October 2005.