The Elephants of Cote d'Ivoire have stampeded to the top of Africa's football ranking, according to the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking for July 2009 by the world soccer governing body.
Cote d'Ivoire leapt from fourth place in June to the first place in the latest ranking, pushing Cameroon to the second place.
Gabon, which was sixth in June, is now third in the rankings, followed by Nigeria, which dropped from second to fourth place.
Rounding up the top 10 teams in Africa are Ghana at number 5, Egypt (6th), Algeria (7th), Tunisia (8th), Burkina Faso (9th) and Morocco (10th).
Guinea and Mali dropped out of the top 10 in Africa, and were replaced by Algeria and Morocco.
Meanwhile, after winning the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, Brazil has regained the top spot in the global rankings, relegating European champion Spain (2nd, down 1) to second place.
The South Americans last topped the ranking in August 2007.
Of the other countries that took part in the FIFA Confederations Cup South Africa 2009, finalists the USA (12th, up 2), Egypt (38th, up 2) and host South Africa (70th, up 2) have also progressed up the ranking.
Egypt's improved position despite its early exit from the tournament is due to its 1-0 victory over world champion Italy, which scored very highly in terms of ranking points.
In other news, Algeria (47th, up 19) and Tunisia (49th, up 2) have climbed into the top 50 at the expense of Burkina Faso (51st, down 1) and Finland (52nd, down 3).
Furthermore, the following teams have achieved their best position since the ranking was introduced in 1993: Australia (16th, up 13), Gabon (30th, up 18), Grenada (88th, up 14), Montenegro (98th, up 12) and Antigua and Barbuda (105th, up 9).
In the last four weeks, a total of 119 senior international matches were played: 16 FIFA Confederations Cup matches, 67 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches and 36 friendlies.
This brings the total matches played this year to 406. FIFA said the many matches played and the devaluation of matches at UEFA EURO 2008 are the main reasons for the many changes in position in this edition of the ranking.
Lagos - 02/07/2009
Pana
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