The FIFA World Ranking
is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, currently
led by Spain. The teams of the member nations of FIFA (Fédération
Internationale de Football Association), football's world governing body, are
ranked based on their game results with the most successful teams being ranked
highest. The rankings were introduced in December 1992, and seven teams
(Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain) have
held the top position, of which Brazil have spent longest ranked first.
A points system is
used, with points being awarded based on the results of all FIFA-recognised
full international matches. Under the existing system, rankings are based on a
team's performance over the last four years, with more recent results and more
significant matches being more heavily weighted to help reflect the current
competitive state of a team. The ranking system was most recently revamped
after the 2006 World Cup, with the first edition of the new series of rankings
issued on 12 July 2006. The most significant change is that the rankings are
now based on results over the previous four years instead of the previous eight
years. The change is perceived to respond to criticisms that the FIFA World
Rankings, based upon the previous calculation method in use from January 1999
to June 2006, did not effectively reflect the relative strengths of the
national teams.
Alternative systems
have been devised, such as the World Football Elo Ratings, based on the Elo
rating system used in chess and Go, ranking teams on an all time basis. The
Unofficial Football World Championships ranks teams on the number of times they
have defended the Unofficial Football World Championship, an award devised
solely for that purpose.
 | |||
| Top 20 Rankings as of 19 December 2012 | |||
| Rank | Change | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |  Spain | 1606 |
| 2 | |  Germany | 1437 |
| 3 | |  Argentina | 1290 |
| 4 |  1 |  Italy | 1165 |
| 5 | 3 |  Colombia | 1164 |
| 6 | |  England | 1151 |
| 7 |  3 |  Portugal | 1144 |
| 8 | 1 |  Netherlands | 1124 |
| 9 | |  Russia | 1070 |
| 10 | |  Croatia | 1064 |
| 11 | 1 |  Greece | 1033 |
| 12 | 4 |  Switzerland | 1004 |
| 13 | 4 |  Ecuador | 999 |
| 14 | 1 |  Côte d'Ivoire | 995 |
| 15 | 1 |  Mexico | 994 |
| 16 | 5 |  Uruguay | 975 |
| 17 | 1 |  France | 949 |
| 18 | 5 |  Brazil | 946 |
| 19 | |  Algeria | 887 |
| 20 | 3 |  Sweden | 870 |
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