According to the rankings table released last Thursday, The Warriors were the highest climbers in the table.
The team, thanks to a credible victory over Mali in an African nations Cup 2012 qualifier early June, are now ranked 87th in the world having leapt 39 places up the ladder.
“That reflects the steady progress of the game in Zimbabwe and the fortunes of the senior national team,” FIFA said in a statement to The Zimbabwean from Zurich.
“A number of African teams have also made heady progress, including Zimbabwe (87th, up 39), Liberia (125th, up 32), Comoros (164th, up 24), Sierra Leone (95th, up 23) and Central African Republic (91st, up 22).”
Zimbabwe had previously been in a steady decline on the rankings table
Before the latest table released by FIFA, the team was ranked a lowly 126th – largely attributed to a poor showing in the qualifiers for next year’s African Nations Cup.
They redeemed lost pride however with a 1-0 victory over West African outfit Mali.
Nonetheless, the latest standing is a far cry from the Dream Team era of the 1990s where the team was ranked 40th.
Meanwhile, among the top10 teams, only leaders Spain and closest challengers the Netherlands have retained their positions. Brazil, third in the previous month, has lost points and places (5th, down 2), and the pecking order has also changed further down.
Mexico gained 19 places thanks to their victory at the CONCACAF Gold Cup and have rocketed back into the top 10 for the first time since July 2007.
Moving in the other direction are Uruguay (18th, down 11), who have dropped out of the top 10 after being particularly badly affected by the devaluation of their successful group-stage matches at South Africa 2010.
Montenegro (16th, up 8) and Côte d’Ivoire (14th, up 7) both scaled new heights, reaching their best position since the introduction of the world ranking, while “In all, 131 international 'A' matches have been played since the previous edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, consisting of 61 friendlies, 22 Gold Cup matches and 48 qualifiers for confederation championships. This takes the total number of games played this year to 386,” said FIFA.
Post published in: Football