Football-Seychelles slip to 188th in Fifa ranking |24 December 2011

According to the latest ranking released on December 21, Seychelles have only 53 points and have lost five places compared to last month among the 200 teams.

After the Indian Ocean Island Games’ success on home soil in August, Seychelles gained 24 places on Fifa’s official ranking – 175th place with 85 points.

Since winning the IOIG gold medal for the first time in front of a partisan crowd at Stad Linite, the Seychelles football team have not been able to rediscover the winning touch, losing four international matches in a row.

They were shown the exit by Kenya in the African preliminaries of the Fifa 2014 World Cup qualifiers on an aggregate 7-0 score (3-0 at Stad Linite and 4-0 in Nairobi) and lost two friendly matches against the Maldives in Male on 0-3 and 1-2 scores.

The two defeats did not help the Seychelles team who had beaten the Maldives 5-1 at Stad Linite to finish top of group A on the way to winning the gold medal for the first time at the 8th IOIG in August.

Since August, Seychelles has lost 13 places in the ranking– 175th with 85 points in August, 177th with 82 points in September, 178th with 82 points in October and 183rd with 69 points in November.

Seychelles thus figures among the biggest losers in the world at the end of the 2011 season Meanwhile, Seychelles is ranked 47th in Africa out of 53 countries. The Maldives, Madagascar and the Comoros are ranked higher than Seychelles in the latest standings. The Maldives are 173rd worldwide and 36th in Asia with 98 points, Madagascar 160th worldwide and 43rd in Africa with 135 points, and the Comoros 187th worldwide and 46th in Africa with 55 points. Neighbouring Mauritius is 194th worldwide and 50th in Africa with 32 points.

World and European champions Spain have for the fourth year running finished the year at the top of the standings with 1,564 points, followed by Holland (1,365), Germany (1,345), Uruguay (1,309), England (1,173), Brazil (1,143), Portugal (1,100), Croatia (1,091), Italy (1,082) and Argentina (1,067) in the top-10.

Ivory Coast have consolidated their status as Africa’s top team with 912 points and are 16th worldwide.

Ghana (29th worldwide), Algeria (30th worldwide), Egypt (31st worldwide), Nigeria (43rd worldwide), Senegal (44th worldwide), Cameroon (50th worldwide), South Africa (52nd worldwide), Cape Verde (58th worldwide), and Tunisia (59th worldwide) occupy the second to 10th places in Africa.

G. G.