Amavubi players seen in a past training session. Rwanda has improved seven places to finish the year outside the top 100 nations
The Rwanda men’s senior football team, Amavubi improved seven places to finish the year ranked 113rd in the latest FIFA rankings released on Thursday in Switzerland.
The World football body, FIFA took into account the Cecafa Challenge Cup tournament a feat which saw Rwanda improve in the December ranking.
At the regional tournament, Rwanda didn’t go past the group stage where they lost to hosts Kenya 0-2 and Zanzibar 1-3 before registering a 2-1 win over Tanzania and drew against Libya.
Rwanda has started mixed rankings this year. They started 2017 ranked in 93rd slot before dropping to 100th in February then made slight improvements back to 93rd position in March.
In April, Rwanda dropped to 117th after a poor display in the Africa Cup of Nations after losing 0-1 to Mauritius away but thrashed them 5-0 in the return leg in Kigali.
The country then dropped further from 118th, 128th, 127th, and 119th from May, June, July and August following poor performances in the Africa Nations Cup qualifiers. Rwanda then improved to 118th in September following a slim 1-0 win over Ghana in the last qualifying match, remained unmoved in October before dropping further to 120th in November due to national team inactivity.
Now ranked 113rd in the December world rankings, Rwanda also improved to 30th in the continental rankings and third in the Cecafa region behind Uganda who are dropped to 75th following their third-place finish at the Cecafa tournament and eventual winners Kenya who improved five places to 106th.
Elsewhere across the Cecafa region, Sudan improved one place to 136th, Burundi dropped four places to 142nd while Ethiopia imporved one place to 143rd position. Tanzania and South Sudan are ranked 147th and 153rd respectively.
Rwanda’s Group C opponents at the CHAN tournament due in Morocco from January 12 to February 4, 2018, Libya who took part in the Cecafa tournament as guest side dropped eleven places to 88th. Libya didn’t also manage to progress past the group stage at the Cecafa Challenge Cup tournament.
Other Group C opponents, Nigeria dropped one place to 51st while Equatorial Guinea dropped one place to 146th position respectively.
In Africa, they were no changes in the top five as Senegal, who qualified for the World Cup ahead of Bafana in Group D, are number one in Africa and 23rd globally, with Tunisia, Egypt, DR Congo and Morocco completing the top five on the continent.
The top 35 positions are unmoved, with world champions Germany being named the latest ‘Team of the Year’, having ended 2017 atop the global ladder.
The world champions, who qualified to defend their crown in Russia by winning all ten of their qualifiers and have been unbeaten in 15 matches in 2017, succeed Argentina and Belgium, who were ‘Team of the Year’ in 2016 and 2015 respectively.
Germany held on to top spot in a largely unchanged Ranking that reflects the fact that just 41 ‘A’ internationals have been played since the previous edition, and that few of those involved teams at the top end of the table.
The next FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking will be published on 18 January 2018.
