Malawi plummet on FIFA ranking: Move from 90 to 96
The Malawi national football team (Flames) has dropped by six places in the latest Coca-Cola FIFA world rankings released Wednesday.
The Flames, who are in camp preparing for the crucial African Cup of Nations qualifier second leg match against Ghana’s Black Stars, are now ranked 96 out of 207 in the world from 90, a position they have held for the last two months.
Kinnah Phiri’s side are ranked 26th out of 54 on the African continent.
The drop follows the Flames defeats in their last games, a 1-0 friendly loss to Liberia and a 2-0 beating to the Black Stars in the first leg of the African cup of Nations qualifier in Accra last month.
Ghana are ranked 31st in the world but area fourth on the continent.
Flames coach Kinnah Phiri attributed the position drop to the recent losses incurred by the flames.
“The problem is that if you lose games like we did with Ghana and Liberia, it will consequently affect your position on the rankings and that is what has happened,” he said.
Kinnah further pointed that lack of international friendly engagements also contributes to the drop in position in the rankings.
“If you see our next schedule after the Ghana match, you will see that we will only have another engagement around March 2013. We should take advantage of this period to play a lot of friendly games with countries like Tanzania, Mozambique and any others; a thing which can be of our benefit on the rankings once we obtain wins,” he said.
However, the coach said the current position drop which comes less than two weeks before the second leg against the Black Stars will not lessen the Flames morale.
“Sometimes losing makes you to double up your effort which is the same scenario here. This will make us work harder in our coming engagement against Ghana,” he said.
According to the recent rankings, Spain has grabbed the worlds’ first position followed by Germany with Portugal on third place.
Ivory Coast is taking the top African position, seconded by Algeria with Mali on third.
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