Football Rankings

Since August 1993, FIFA has started ranking international teams in order to publish comparisons of their relative strengths at regular intervals. Initially one point was given for a draw and three for victory. This system of ranking was very simple and was far from the original objective. FIFA realized that more factors affect the result and to make the ranking more comprehensive, it made the following few changes:

• Scaling up the point ranking by a factor of ten.
• Changing the calculation to take into account:
• Number of goals
• Home or away match
• Importance of Match/Competition
• Regional strength
• Not having fixed points for a victory or a draw.
• Allowing the match losers to earn points.

Previously the evolution period was eight years, but after World Cup 2006, it will be cut down to four years.

FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking 2008: World Top 20 Football (Soccer)Teams)

Ranking	Country Flag	Team Name	Points
1		Spain	1565
2		Italy	1339
3		Germany	1329
4		Netherlands	1295
5		Croatia	1266
6		Brazil	1252
7		Argentina	1230
8		Czech Republic	1134
9		Portugal	1120
10		Turkey	1033
11		France	1019
12		Russia	1013
13		Romania	1007
14		Cameroon	999
15		England	991
16		Scotland	976
17		Bulgaria	976
18		Greece	921
19		Israel	874
20		Ghana	864