© EuroFootball.com
After a four-year break, the Brazilian national team lost the position of the leader in the FIFA World Rankings and had to surrender this spot to the World Champion Italy. This was revealed on Wednesday when FIFA announced the ranking for the month of February.
Brazil reigned at the top of the rankings for 55 months, but after a recent defeat in a friendly match against Portugal, they lost 48 points and for the first time since 1993, the world champion from last summer, Italy, found itself at the top of the rankings.
There were no changes in the top eight, Czech Republic moved up to ninth place, and Spain returned to the top ten for the first time since November. Nigeria lost 27 places due to the devaluation of points from the 2006 African Cup of Nations, landing in 36th place. Cameroon, Egypt, Tunisia, and even Guinea dropped in the rankings.
Lithuania lost 20 ranking points and fell from 68th to 72nd place, Latvia dropped to 96th place, and Estonia stayed in 106th place. Among Lithuania's opponents in the 2008 European Championship qualifiers, Scotland jumped to 20th place, Georgia rose nine spots to 86th place, while France and Ukraine are in 4th and 11th places respectively, and the Faroe Islands dropped to 183rd place.
FIFA World Rankings for February 2007 (position, country, points, previous position) 1. Italy 1562 (2) 2. Brazil 1540 (1) 3. Argentina 1535 (3) 4. France 1496 (4) 5. Germany 1359 (5) 6. England 1330 (6) 7. Netherlands 1312 (7) 8. Portugal 1262 (8) 9. Czech Republic 1193 (10) 10. Spain 1161 (12) 11. Ukraine 1018 (13) 12. Croatia 967 (15) 13. Greece 926 (16) 14. Switzerland 913 (17) 15. Romania 912 (20) 16. Sweden 894 (14) 17. Cameroon 893 (13) 18. Denmark 876 (22) 19. Mexico 857 (21) 20. Scotland 854 (26) ... 72. Lithuania 435 (68) ... 86. Georgia 363 (95) ... 96. Latvia 324 (90) ... 106. Estonia 266 (106) ... 183. Faroe Islands 31 (181)
