Despite being the only African World Cup bound team to win the last stage and followed up by holding former World Cup four-time champions, Italy, to a thrilling 2-2 draw in London last Monday, the Super Eagles will go down one step in the ranking to be released by FIFA this week.

The Super Eagles, who are 33 with 724 points, will drop to 34, with a reduced point haul of 710. It means that a 2-0 defeat of Ethiopia and a 2-2 draw with the penultimate world champions, Italy fetched Nigeria a 14 point loss over what Nigeria had last month.

The huge point loss may have been largely due to the 1-0 loss of the home based Super Eagles to Jordan late last month.

That was also the situation in September, when after a 2-0 away win in South Africa and another 2-0 win against Malawi in Calabar, Nigeria’s point rose from 700 to 709, but inexplicably dropped to 707 after a 4-1 massacre of Burkina Faso in Kaduna in what is inexplicably an anomaly.

As at the time, Burkina Faso was still in the race for the World Cup qualification and ranked among the top seven in Africa. Yet, a massive defeat of such a team only fetched Nigeria point duck instead of gain.

Nigeria’s point loss this time around is further caused by the 1-0 loss of the second string Super Eagles to Jordan last month.

Nigeria may not be the only team to cry foul. A South Africa 1-0 win recorded last week over World Cup holders, Spain has been technically rendered useless by the tricky approach of Spain.

The match had been down graded from Grade A, following Spain’s use of seven substitutes, one more than allowed in a grade A friendly match. In effect, the loss will not affect Spain’s number one position in the world ranking and will neither improve the position of South Africa and their players, who must have laboured in vain.

Since the match had been down graded from A status, it will not count for the players in terms of international appearances. South Africa will only banked on its away 3-0 win over lowly ranked Swaziland to step up from 540 to 541 points and will possibly remain static in spite of the valuable win over Spain.

The Spanish made seven substitutions, one more than FIFA’s regulations allow.

Napoli keeper, Pepe Reina was the final change that rendered the game useless for South Africa. He went in for injured Victor Valdes barely nine minutes to end the friendly match.

Pepe Reina went in for injured Victor Valdes, despite defender Alvaro Arbeloa putting on the goalkeeper’s shirt in readiness to end the match between the posts in place of the injured goalkeeper.

But Spain coach, Vincent del Bosque overruled his player and sent in Reina. South Africa’s coach, Gordon Igesund attempted to demonstrate with the Spanish bench but was ultimately ignored.

Bisque probably acted to make mockery of South Africa’s imminent win, which will no longer technically count as a Grade A match.

According to FIFA regulations, In national “A” team matches, up to a maximum of six substitutes may be used.

In all other matches, a greater number of substitutes may be used, provided that the teams concerned reach agreement on a maximum number and the referee is informed before the match.

If the referee is not informed, or if no agreement is reached before the match, no more than six substitutes are allowed.