By NNN-KUNA
Geneva : According to the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, the biggest climber in August is the Asian continent’s newly-crowned champion, Iraq, which now ranks 64th.
The Iraqi football team has jumped 16 places after reaping 76 points on the strength of their magnificent feat in the Asian Cup.
The Korean Republic is perched even higher up the ladder (50th, up 8) alongside Asian Cup finalists Saudi Arabia (51st, up 10), who garnered even more points than the Iraqis.
According to FIFA, the most talked about match in the past four weeks was Saudi Arabia’s victory over ousted Asian champions Japan (41st, down 5), who remain Asia’s top ranking team ahead of Iran and Australia despite having suffered a few defeats.
Other teams who have leapfrogged 10 or more places are Guyana (90th, up 10), the UAE (96th, up 10) as well as four associations outside the top 100 — Namibia (114th), India (151st), Vanuatu (167th) and New Caledonia (168th).
This month’s ranking sees no changes to record at the top of the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. Brazil tops the world, followed by Argentina, Italy, France and Germany.
Croatia (6th, up 1) and the Netherlands (7th, down 1) have swapped places and the Czech Republic (9th, up 2) has returned to the top 10 after an absence of a month.