Zurich (Switzerland), Dec 23 (Agency) India men will finish the year 2021 at 104th position in the FIFA rankings, the international governing body announced on Thursday. The Blue Tigers maintained their spot in the latest updated table. For the fourth year in a row, Belgium finished the calendar year at the pole position of the rankings chart albeit just ahead of Brazil by 2.1 points. Meanwhile, France ended the year at third place. For their part, Canada (40th) are the year’s ‘Most Improved Side’, having picked up no fewer than 130.32 points over the last 12 months. Their journey to the semi-finals of the 2021 Gold Cup as well as impressive results in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 qualifying have been major factors in their rise.
The winners of the Copa America 2021 and UEFA EURO 2020 Italy (6th) and Argentina (5th) respectively have also seen their points tally increase dramatically this year. The same goes for England (4th) and USA (11th). Equatorial Guinea (114th) made the most impressive progress among African teams, while Saudi Arabia (51st) did the same in Asia. However, just in terms of last month, the most improved Asian team is Indonesia (164th). The winners of the FIFA Arab Cup 2021 Algeria (29th) jointly made the best progress in terms of places, along with Qatar (48th), who finished third at the tournament, and Thailand (115th). The next FIFA Rankings will be determined on February 10, 2022.