A couple of weeks after pulling an impressive draw against five-times world champions Brazil, the Super Eagles have surprisingly seen their name dropped by one spot in the FIFA World Ranking for the month of October.
Nigeria’s national football team is now placed as the world’s 35th best footballing country.
Coach Gernot Rohr’s side have suffered from playing just once during the month under review as FIFA, the world football governing body, on Thursday, revealed that Nigeria garnered 1,481 points to take up their new spot on 35.
The three time Africa champions earned 1482 points in September to sit in 34th, a position that has now been snapped up by another.
Northern Ireland is the country who took over Nigeria’s previous 34th spot after the Europeans picked up one win – a 3-2 friendly victory over Czech Republic – and one loss – a 3-1 European Championship qualifier thrashing in the Netherlands – in the month under the spotlight.
However, in spite of the drop, Nigeria still occupy the third spot in Africa behind Senegal and Tunisia who are placed 20th and 29th with 1,546 and 1,495 points, respectively.
Belgium retain their top spot on the FIFA ranking followed closely by world champions France, five-time World Cup winners Brazil, England, and Uruguay in that order to complete the world’s top five teams.
Uruguay, previously on sixth spot, sneaked past European champions Portugal who occupied the fifth spot last month.