Left: Qatar coach, Felix Sanchez. Right: Qatar captain, Hassan Al Haydos
Doha: Asian champions Qatar returned to the top 50 club in the FIFA Rankings after a fine run at the recently-concluded FIFA Arab Cup where they finished third.
The Felix Sanchez-coached side leapfrogged three places to finish 2021 at 48th place, according to the men’s rankings published by football governing body FIFA.
The winners of the FIFA Arab Cup, Algeria (29th +3) jointly made the best progress in terms of places, along with Qatar, and Thailand (115th +3).
Just in terms of last month, the most improved Asian team are Indonesia (164th + 11.13 points).
The comeback for Qatar has been due their consistent performances in the last six months including the FIFA Arab Cup 2021. Following on their successes at the CONCACAF Gold Cup 2021 tournament and the joint FIFA 2022 Asian World Cup and AFC 2023 Asian Cup qualifiers, earlier, Qatar had shot up the world rankings from 58th to 42nd making them the highest mover on the chart, but they have also reached their highest-ever position since the system’s inception. Meanwhile, Belgium continue to stay at the top despite their failure to win a first major trophy.
The golden generation featuring stars such as Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne and Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku lost in the semi-finals of the Nations League to World Cup holders and eventual winners France.
Belgium have a best 1,828.45 points to lead the standings for a fourth consecutive year with Brazil just behind on 1,826.35.
France are third with European champions Italy sixth behind England and South American champions Argentina. Spain, Portugal, Denmark and the Netherlands complete the top 10 going into the World Cup year of 2022.
The rankings will determine the seeding posts for the Qatar tournament meaning Germany, ranked 12th, could well receive a tough draw as a second seed.
Iran, 21st, are the best side in Asia, one behind Senegal who are the strongest African nation going into the continental championship held in Cameroon next month.
The United States are the best North and Central American side in 11th while New Zealand top Oceania in 110th.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, only 352 full internationals were played in 2020. Not since 1987 (323 matches) had so few games been played in a calendar year. By contrast, planet football made up for lost time in 2021 with a record breaking 1116 matches played.
