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SUPER EAGLES RISE IN FIFA RANKING

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Two consecutive wins in the last qualifying tournament for the Africa Cup of Nations have made the Nigeria Super Eagles leap four steps on the monthly FIFA rankings.

The Nigerian sides are now 32 in the world as against the 36th position they hitherto occupied.

That is one of the high points of the latest ranking released on a Wednesday instead of the traditional first Thursday of every month.

In the latest ranking, a total of 185 games comprising qualifiers for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations and the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 shaped the positions of teams.

While the order of the top six has not changed, with Belgium still dominating ahead of France and Brazil, seventh place is now filled by Italy (7, +3).

 Like Gli Azzurri, Denmark (10, +2) won their opening three qualifying games for Qatar 2022 and make a return to the top 10.

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A little further down, Serbia (25, +5), Nigeria (32, +4), Scotland (44, +4) and Ghana (49, +3) all gained ground in the top 50, which Iceland slipped out of (52, -6).

However, to find the biggest mover this month, we need to look outside the top 100. That distinction goes to Guinea-Bissau (108, +11), with Namibia (111, +10) almost matching them with a jump of ten places.

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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