Nigeria moved up three spots up from 66th to the 63rd position in the latest FIFA rankings released on Thursday. The Eagles garnered 543 points, a difference of three from the 540 points they had in January.
The Eagles are now 12th in the continental rankings, behind Cameroon, who are 62nd in the world and 11th on the continent. The 4-1 win against Niger and the 1-1 draw with Tunisia at the African Nations Championship helped improve the Eagles ratings since the competition recently got FIFA’s recognition to be considered in the ranking. Ivory Coast are still Africa’s number one team still the best ranked African team as they are 28th in the world. The Ivorians dropped nine places from January’s 19th position. They are followed by the biggest movers on the continent – Cape Verde – who moved eight places up to 33rd with 790 points. Algeria, who dropped eight places in the world, are Africa’s third with 746 points in the 36th position followed by Ghana, who also dropped eight points to sit in the 41st position. The Eagles will have to improve in the rankings before the draws for the final round of the qualifiers for the Russia 2018 World Cup is done in June.
 

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