FIFA Ranking: September 2008 preview

A lot of friendlies will be played this month and a couple of World Cup and continental qualifiers.

Here's a preview of the September 2008 FIFA rankings (only the top 50). No matter what happens, Spain will remain on top, while Italy will return on the second step of the podium. Netherlands could go third with a win against Russia.

Looking at the rivalries, Mexico will overtake the USA with a home win against Honduras, while Scotland will overtake England for the second time in the history of the rankings if they get a better result against Northern Ireland than England against the Czech Republic. England will be safe with a win, no matter what Scotland does.

Argentina will overtake Brazil with a win against Belarus.

Spain, Cameroon and Japan are safe as top teams of their confederations.

New Caledonia will replace New Zealand at the top of the OFC.

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.

"Current" = as of today (August 8th). I've included in the calculations matches played up to and including August 7th. Basically, these would be the point totals if no matches would be played until the rankings are published on September 3rd.

Current rank - Country - Current points - Minimum points - Maximum points

1	Spain	1603	1543	1572
2	Italy	1380	1332	1353
3	Germany	1341	1302	1329
4	Netherlands	1338	1293	1329
5	Croatia	1288	1242	1266
6	Argentina	1265	1217	1256
7	Brazil	1252	1252	1252
8	Czech Republic	1170	1120	1162
9	Portugal	1148	1109	1120
10	Russia	1042	1000	1039
11	Turkey	1039	1005	1033
12	Scotland	1027	956	1019
13	England	1016	973	1025
14	Romania	1012	976	1007
15	France	1006	985	1019
16	Cameroon	1001	1001	1001
17	Bulgaria	1000	928	976
18	Israel	944	877	936
19	Greece	925	891	920
20	Ghana	893	893	893
21	Egypt	866	841	852
22	Paraguay	824	792	821
23	Colombia	814	786	816
24	Côte d'Ivoire	813	792	813
25	Uruguay	808	776	817
26	Poland	799	779	811
27	Sweden	793	772	807
28	Nigeria	791	791	791
29	Northern Ireland	775	738	807
29	Ukraine	775	754	801
31	USA	758	735	788
32	Norway	757	715	768
33	Mexico	746	727	807
34	Serbia	743	743	743
35	Denmark	725	692	747
36	Japan	722	701	730
37	Chile	681	655	695
38	Australia	677	645	675
39	Guinea	675	650	682
39	Morocco	675	655	671
41	Republic of Ireland	674	643	700
42	Tunisia	655	636	659
43	Senegal	641	618	639
44	Mali	639	639	639
45	Switzerland	632	612	644
46	Moldova	629	575	622
47	Iran	627	603	633
48	Finland	626	601	650
49	Hungary	587	557	572
50	Wales	581	549	580

I'll try to post an update after August 20th.

---

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.