Again, Eagles drop in FIFA ranking as Mali, Cape Verde overtake Nigeria

Mali and Cape Verde overtook Nigeria in the fresh edition of FIFA rankings published on January 16, 2014, Thursday.


The Super Eagles lost four places, go down 37th to 41st position.

The African Champions are now only the seventh team on the African continent. Aside Ivory Coast, Ghana and Algeria who were previously ranked above Nigeria, Mali in 40th position, Cape Verde 35th and Egypt in 30th have now all overtaken the Super Eagles.

The ‘freefall’ for the Super Eagles started in November 2013 when they dropped from 33rdposition to 36th. They further went a step down to 37th spot in December 2013, before tumbling to 41st in the January 2014 rankings just released.

Overall, there have been very few changes to the first edition of the rankings in 2014, with football having come to a halt in many places over the New Year period.

Only 18 friendly matches were considered since December’s edition, five of which took place in 2013, with the remaining 13 in the first half of January 2014.

There was no movement in the top 25, with Spain still holding a comfortable lead over Germany and Argentina.

Next time the ranking will be updated on February 13, 2014, after CHAN 2014 is over.