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FIFA Rankings: Nigeria static, Senegal and Burkina Faso To Rise

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BY KUNLE SOLAJA.

Ahead of the two friendly matches the Super Eagles will play against Senegal and Burkina Faso later this month in the United Kingdom, the Nigerian team will remain static at 50th position when the monthly FIFA ranking is released on Thursday.

Even though Nigeria will at 41stth position, the team however drops one point from its current 686 points, Chief Town Crier at www.sportsvillagesquare.com can authoritatively reveal.

While Nigeria remains at 50th position, Senegal and Burkina Faso will rise in positions at Thursday’s results of the monthly ranking.

Senegal currently the highest in Africa at 31st position will rise to 27th ahead of Bosnia Herzegovina, United States and Ukraine. The point haul of Senegal will also increase from 799 to 831.

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As for Burkina Faso which Nigeria will face on March 27, the team is expected to leap from its current 38th position to 35th.

The total point will also rise from 736 to 778 to make the team Tunisia and DR Congo to be joint 35th with Hungary.

A defeat of the two teams later this month in UK will see Nigeria rising when the April ranking is released on April 6.

The match ranking lent itself to easy calculation as very few matches were played within the last ranking day and now. .

In fact the only engagement of countries in the first 50 bracket was the Mexico versus Iceland friendly match.

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The calculation is therefore based on the average points gained from matches in the past 12 months and that obtained with depreciating effect in the past three years.

Based on this, there will be no changes among the current top 12 teams. But England will drop from number 13 to 14 following the rise of Poland to be joint 12th with Wales.

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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