Rwanda’s Amavubi team has seen improvements in the first FIFA ranking of the 2019, moving from 137 to 135
FIFA have released their latest set of rankings and Rwanda has improved two places to 135 following an inactive month of January which has not seen any competition of sorts.
Rwanda are ranked 135th globally, improving two places in FIFA Coca Cola World Rankings released on Thursday.
With 1094 points retained from the previous list in December, Rwanda is ranked 36th on the African continent and fourth in Cecafa region behind leaders Uganda who dropped two places to 77th, Kenya also dropped one slot to 106th while Sudan remained unmoved in 127th position respectively.
According to FIFA statement, the Asian Cup has been responsible for the notable changes in the rankings, with the scarcity of games in other confederations leaving the top 20 unchanged, and Belgium still in pole position.
Further down the table, Qatar is not the only team to have ascended in spectacular style.
Fellow finalists, Japan (27th, up 23) have also soared up the order, while Korea Republic (38th, up 15), United Arab Emirates (67th, up 12) and Jordan (97th, up 12) all registered double-digit gains.
There were also significant upward moves by the likes of Iraq (80th, up 8), Iran (22nd, up 7) and Uzbekistan (89th, up 6).
Another consequence of these changes is that Asia has boosted its numbers in the Ranking’s top 50.
The Asian Football Confederation is now represented by four teams up, one on the last edition, and now stands level with Africa, whose numbers have been depleted by Congo DR (51st, down 2) dropping out.
Meanwhile, Senegal retains her top spot among CAF teams with 1505 points and 24th in the world with Tunisia following closely with 1493 points on 28th place.
Behind is Morocco who garnered 1440 points after descending three places, from 40th placed in the previous list to 43rd. The next rankings will be published on April 4 after the climax of the 2019 AFCON Qualifiers which will be played in the last week of March, 2019.
