FIFA Ranking: September 2008 preview (II)

Friendlies have been scheduled and canceled since August 8th, so here's a quick update of the previous version.

Wales, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Honduras and Cuba could also make it into the top 50 if results go their way.

There will be 28 countries with less than 5 matches in the last 12 months, with New Zealand (3 matches) and Cuba (4 matches - including the qualifier against Trinidad and Tobago) catching the eye.

As the "current points" choice raised some eyebrows (Lusankya's to be more exact), I will use the August points and rankings instead for the first columns of the table.

Point totals for teams from the top 20 of the October 2007 ranking should be 100% correct. For the others, there's the issue of historical rankings published before July 2006.

August 2008 rank - Country - August 2008 points - Minimum points - Maximum points

1	Spain	1557	1543	1572
2	Germany	1343	1302	1329
3	Italy	1320	1332	1353
4	Netherlands	1299	1293	1329
5	Croatia	1282	1242	1266
6	Brazil	1242	1252	1252
7	Argentina	1219	1217	1256
8	Czech Republic	1146	1120	1162
9	Portugal	1122	1109	1120
10	Russia	1023	1000	1039
11	Romania	1021	976	1007
12	France	1012	985	1019
13	Turkey	1010	1005	1033
14	England	1003	973	1025
15	Cameroon	994	1001	1001
16	Scotland	988	956	1019
17	Bulgaria	930	928	976
18	Greece	896	891	920
19	Ghana	892	861	874
20	Israel	876	877	936
21	Egypt	851	841	852
22	Paraguay	820	792	821
23	Colombia	816	786	816
24	Uruguay	813	776	817
25	Côte d'Ivoire	802	792	813
26	Sweden	801	772	807
27	Nigeria	788	791	791
28	Ukraine	786	754	801
29	Poland	778	779	811
29	Norway	778	715	768
31	USA	767	735	788
32	Northern Ireland	750	738	807
32	Mexico	750	727	807
34	Serbia	749	743	743
35	Japan	727	701	730
36	Denmark	722	696	750
37	Morocco	690	655	671
38	Australia	685	645	675
39	Chile	680	655	695
40	Guinea	670	650	682
41	Republic of Ireland	666	643	700
42	Finland	653	601	650
43	Senegal	649	618	639
44	Switzerland	645	612	644
45	Iran	643	605	616
46	Belgium	637	531	605
47	Tunisia	629	636	659
48	Mali	624	610	637
49	Moldova	622	575	622
50	Hungary	591	557	572

The next update will be posted (hopefully!) on August 21st.

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About me:

Christian, husband, father x 3, programmer, Romanian. Started the blog in March 2007. Quit in April 2018. You can find me on LinkedIn.