By Ben Efe
Nigeria’s free fall in the FIFA rankings continued for the month of May as the country dropped three places down to the 63rd position.

However, Nigerian football enthusiasts are hopeful that Nigeria  will climb back to world reckoning, as the Eagles tackled 36th placed Peru in a friendly on May 23. In 1994 the Eagles were in the world top five ratings, but now they are struggling to keep a place in the Africa top ten.

Cote’d Ivoire rated 15th in the world maintained their top position on the continent with Ghana perched at 22 coming second. Algeria, Mali and Zambia retained their 38, 39 and 40 positions respectively to complete the top five teams in Africa. Gabon (42), Libya (46), Tunisia (56), Egypt (57) , Morocco (60) and Sierra Leone (61) make up the top 11 teams with Nigeria ranked 12th in Africa.

However, former Eagles star, Jonathan Akpoborie submitted that the rankings are not a reflection of the true strength of the teams.

“Nigerians should take solace in the fact that the Eagles have the capability to bounce back. The team under Stephen Keshi are on the right track,” said the former international.

World champion Spain remains No. 1 in FIFA’s monthly rankings ahead of Germany and Uruguay, followed by the Netherlands and Portugal.

The only change among the top 10 in the May rankings is Argentina swapping places with Denmark to occupy spot No. 9.

FIFA expects more changes during May as more friendly matches are played in the lead up to the European Championship next month and another round of 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

Euro 2012 runs from June 8 to July 1.

-Vanguard

Posted by admin on May 9 2012. Filed under Headlines, Soccer, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry