NEW YORK CITY, NY (CMC) – Reigning Caribbean champions Jamaica predictably started the year the same place they finished – at the top of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) rankings. This followed the publication of the latest edition of the World Rankings yesterday by the sport’s World governing body, FIFA.
There have been no positional changes in the CFU region, mainly due to the down period last month, when there was little or no action.
Except for a one place drop for Curaҫao and the Bahamas, the regional teams all maintained their places in the CONCACAF Rankings as well.
Curaҫao dropped to 24th and the Bahamians to 25th in the confederation, following one-place drops in the World Rankings as well.
The Jamaicans, preparing for the semi-final phase of CONCACAF qualification for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, moved up two places in the World to 52nd to hold onto to their CFU top ranking and fifth place in the confederation.
All of the teams in the top-10 in the CFU, except CFU No.2 Trinidad & Tobago, No.5 Guyana, No.7 Puerto Rico and No.10 Suriname improved their positions.
CFU third-ranked Haiti moved up one to 80th; No.4 Antigua & Barbuda edged up to 84th with a three-place jump, the biggest move either way in the Caribbean; sixth-ranked Bermuda advanced one place to 106th; while No.8 Cuba and No.9 St Kitts & Nevis both moved two places up to 113th and 11th respectively.
The Soca Warriors dropped two places to 78th. the Guyanese dropped one place to 92nd while the Puerto Ricans and the Surinamese remained unchanged.
There were some other minor positional changes below the top-10 with the Dominican Republic and Grenada advancing two places in the World to occupy positions 129 and 132, and the British Virgin Islands edged up one to 198th in the World.
FIFA acknowledged that there were very few changes to the year’s first edition of the rankings, as precious little matches were played around the World.
In fact, only 11 matches were taken into account, including six that were actually played last year.
At the summit, reigning World champions Spain continue to lead the way ahead of the Netherlands, Germany and Uruguay, who are still close together in the chasing pack.
Of the top 20 teams, only Chile have been in action recently, their 3-2 victory over Paraguay seeing them overtake Russia and move into 12th place on the global ladder.
Although there was not much movement this month, some teams did still climb into their highest-ever position on the rankings, namely Bosnia-Herzegovina (19th, up 1), Panama (47th, up 2), Estonia (52nd, up 5) and Belize (133rd, up 8). Montenegro (50th, up 1) have also returned to the top 50.
This month’s other successful sides are Uzbekistan (67th, up 8), Zambia (71st, up 8), Saudi Arabia (87th, up 9), Congo DR (116th, up 9) and Nicaragua (145th, up 9), who have all benefited from the devaluation of poor results in previous years to make significant progress up the table.
There will undoubtedly be more movement on February’s Ranking as the 32 matches taking place at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea will be taken into account.
The next release of the rankings is on February 15.