Brazil up a place to 12th in FIFA rankings
Reuters - Wednesday 05 September 2012, 10:10
Brazil stayed outside the top ten
of FIFA's highly questioned ranking system on Wednesday, with
England, Denmark and Greece all ahead of the five-times world
champions.
The South Americans, who hit an all-time low of 13th last
month, climbed one place to 12th thanks to a 3-0 friendly win in
Sweden.
But their placing, one below Greece, is still surprisingly
low as they have won 10 of their 13 full internationals played
in the last year, with their only defeats against Argentina and
Mexico during a tour of the United States in June.
In May, they outclassed tenth-placed Denmark 3-1 in a
friendly.
England remained third, a position which many critics feel
is too high given their lacklustre results over the last two
years.
They are three places above Italy, who beat them on
penalties at Euro 2012 in the quarter-final and went on to reach
the final.
World and European champion Spain stayed top, ahead of
Germany who were outclassed as they lost 3-1 to seventh-placed
Argentina in a friendly last month.
Uruguay, fifth, are South America's highest-placed team.
Mali (32nd) and Libya (36th) both recorded their
highest-ever rankings.
Rankings (Last month's in brackets):
1. (1) Spain
2. (2) Germany
3. (3) England
4. (5) Portugal
5. (4) Uruguay
6. (6) Italy
7. (7) Argentina
8. (8) Netherlands
9. (9) Croatia
10. (10) Denmark