Italy back to top of world soccer rankings
Italy, with a win in a EURO 2008 qualifying match boosting its ratings, moved back to the No. 1 spot in the FIFA men's world soccer rankings released Wednesday.
Antonio Di Natale scored a pair of goals in Italy's 2-1 victory last week over Ukraine improving the Italians to 6-1-2 in EURO Group B play, a showing strong enough to move Italy back to the top of the world rankings.
Argentina remained second while Brazil went from first to third in the FIFA rankings. Italy, Argentina and Brazil have a strong lead on the rest of the field.
Germany moved up one spot to fourth followed by the Netherlands and France, which was ranked fourth in August. Spain is seventh followed by Portugal, England and Croatia.
Scotland, which defeated France 1-0 in EURO qualifying, made a strong move to 14th place, the Scots' highest ranking ever. Scotland was 23rd in the August ratings.
FIFA world rankings points are based matches over four years, the importance of each match, the strength of the opponent, the strength of the region and the number of matches per year that each team plays.
// Copyright 2007 by United Press International
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