Taifa Stars improve slightly in latest FIFA rankings

Taifa Stars have made a slight improvement in this year’s FIFA World-rankings after climbing up one position as opposed disappointingly drop in the last year’s listing.

Tanzania has gone up by one position from 138 to 137 despite remaining stagnant with 1087 points. Tanzania did not gain any point in the last rankings released in December, 2018, Tanzania continue to cling at 138th position.

The same 138th position was held by the team in November last year after the country dropped two positions which came after Stars lost 1-0 to Lesotho, ‘Likuena’ in 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying game in Maseru.

Tanzania will host Uganda at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam next month on their final AFCON qualifying game, and the match will determine if Stars will qualify again for AFCON finals after their maiden appearance in 1980.

The 2019 AFCON finals will be staged in Egypt after Cameroon was revoked the right to host the continental biggest football showdown. Tanzania is lucky to have gone up by a position despite being out of action since their last AFCON qualifying match against Lesotho. There has been no notable improvement for Stars at the regional level (CECAFA) has the team has remained at the fifth position.

Uganda remains CECAFA region’s powerhouse despite going down g two places to 77th from last month’s 75th, Uganda is followed by Kenya who is placed 106th and behind them are Sudan who had not moved up from their previous position as they are still placed 127th globally.

Rwanda is placed 135th globally as they have improves two places and they are fourth in CECAFA region followed by Tanzania and Burundi. Ethiopia remains 151st globally, South Sudan (164th), Djibouti (197th) while Somalia and neighbors Eritrea are both placed 204th.

In continental ranking, Senegal is leading the way at 24th position followed by Tunisia placed at 28th, Morocco third at 43rd, Nigeria fourth at 46th, DR Congo fifth at 51st, Ghana sixth at 52nd, Cameroon seventh at 56th and Egypt eighth at 57th position.

The global top positions in the latest rankings have remained unchanged because of less playing time for countries since last ranking to January this year. The top position is still held by Belgium with 1727 points followed by France with 1726 point and Brazil is placed third with 1,676 points followed by Croatia (1,634), England (1,631), Portugal (1,614), Uruguay (1,609), Switzerland (1,599), Spain (1,591) and Denmark with 1,589 points respectively.

The next FIFA/CocaCola World Ranking will be published on 4 April 2019.