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The International Football Association Federation on Wednesday announced the first world national teams ranking in 2005. In the past month, with almost no international matches, the January ranking is not much different from December.
There were no movements in certain positions, but the Lithuanian national team, which has not played for some time, firmly holds the 100th position, as Panama, which previously shared this position, dropped to 101st place.
Among Lithuanian opponents in the World Cup qualifying matches, only Belgium and San Marino changed their positions, moving up and down one position to 44th and 165th places respectively, while the Spanish remain fifth, Serbians 46th, and Bosnia 79th.
Neighboring Latvia dropped from 65th to 66th place, and Estonia rose from 81st to 80th. There were no changes in the top ten teams, but Germany rose slightly in the top twenty, jumping to 16th place after a successful tour of Asia. Among all ranked teams, Ethiopia made the biggest leap, moving up 20 positions to 131st place.
FIFA National Team Ranking for January 2005: (position, country, points, previous position)
1. Brazil 842 pts (1) 2. France 791 (2) 3. Argentina 785 (3) 4. Czech Republic 777 (4) 5. Spain 764 (5) 6. Netherlands 757 (6) 7. Mexico 753 (7) 8. England 751 (8) 9. Portugal 747 (9) 10. Italy 738 (10) 11. USA 726 (11) 12. Ireland 716 (12) 13. Sweden 715 (13) 14. Denmark 711 (14) 14. Turkey 711 (14) 16. Germany 710 (19) 17. Uruguay 707 (16) 18. Greece 706 (18) 19. Japan 703 (17) 20. Iran 695 (20) ... 44. Belgium 600 (45) ... 46. Serbia and Montenegro 599 (46) ... 66. Latvia 560 (65) ... 79. Bosnia and Herzegovina 526 (79) 80. Estonia 525 (81) ... 100. Lithuania 472 (100) ... 165. San Marino 221 (164)
