Soccer
Bafana move up FIFA rankings
2009-07-01 11:40
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Johannesburg - South Africa football national team Bafana Bafana have been rewarded for their impressive run in the recent 2009 Confederations Cup which was won by Brazil.
For their efforts Bafana move two places up from 72 to 70, an acceptable achievement for a team that has been going down the rankings in an alarming rate recently.
The biggest change is at the top which sees Brazil managing to topple Spain for the top spot after the Spaniards had remain the number one ranked team for a year. Brazil won five consecutive matches on their way to the Confederations Cup triumph. Spain came third in the tournament after a shock defeat by the USA in the semi-finals.
Bafana showed much improvement against the likes of eventual champions Brazil going down by a slender 1-0, while everyone had expected the Brazilians to hammer them by a bigger margin. They also held their own against European champions Spain in the 3rd and 4th playoff forcing the game to extra time, this after leading 1-0 with three minutes remaining, but Spain made a quick reply scoring two goals in two minutes. But Bafana were not to be outdone as they got a late equaliser in the referee’s optional time to send the game to extra time, where they later conceded and lost the game 3-2.
This will be something the technical team will be delighted about as the national team really needs to be in a respectable position in the rankings as hosts of the Fifa 2010 Soccer World Cup.
Meanwhile, Confederations Cup finalists the USA also moved two places up to 12th and Egypt moved two up as well occupying the 38th spot. Poor performances from both Iraq and New Zealand saw them going down 17 and 18 places down respectively. Iraq are now ranked 94 and New Zealand are 100th. Italy are unchanged at number 4.
