India moves up 3 spots in FIFA rankings after winning SAFF Cup

Indian football team moved up three rungs to occupy 163rd spot in the FIFA rankings issued yesterday on the back of its SAFF Cup title triumph

New Delhi: Indian football team moved up three rungs to occupy 163rd spot in the FIFA rankings issued yesterday on the back of its SAFF Cup title triumph.

India had beaten Afghanistan 2-1 in the summit clash on January 3 in Thiruvananthapuram to lift the SAFF Cup for the seventh time.

Before that, the home team had beaten Sri Lanka (2-0) and Nepal (4-1) in the group stages and Maldives (3-2) in the semifinals.

All the four SAFF Cup matches were taken into account in the calculation of the rankings. Five of India's matches played in December 2011 went out of rankings calculations as they now fall outside the four-year period.

With 139 points to its tally, a gain of seven points from previous month, India occupy 31st spot among Asian countries.

Iran, on 43rd spot, leads the Asian countries, followed by Korea (51), Japan (53), Australia (59) and UAE (64).

Overall, Belgium continued to lead the rankings table, followed by Argentina, Spain, Germany, Chile and Brazil in top five.

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