Bunmi Ogunyale
Three-time African champions, the Super Eagles have
retained their position as the 3th highest African side in the FIFA world rankings, making them a pot 1 team for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
With no international breaks since the last update, there has been little in the way of change across the board in the FIFA rankings monthly update.
Despite this, the ranking still holds a lot of weight for African teams as the current installment is what will be used to determine the pots for the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
In 31st place overall, Nigeria are the 3th highest African side and as such find themselves in pot 1 for the draw.
Gernot Rohr’s men garnered a total of 1493 points to stay as the third-best team in Africa behind Senegal and Tunisia.
The full set of pots is as follows: Pot 1: Senegal, Tunisia, Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana, Egypt, Cameroon, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In Pot 2: Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa, Guinea, Uganda, Cape Verde, Gabon, Benin, Zambia, and the Congo.
Pot 3 is made up of Madagascar, Mauritania, Libya, Mozambique, Kenya, Central Africa, Zimbabwe, Niger, Namibia, Guinea-Bissau, while Pot 4 have the likes of Malawi, Angola, Togo, Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Djibouti
The full draw takes place on January 21st 2020 in a Cairo hotel.
Meanwhile, Belgium claimed the team of the year award for 2019. The Red Devils beat reigning world champions France to the title thanks to results from 19 friendlies.
2022 Fifa World Cup hosts, Qatar are the ‘Mover of the Year’ having gained a striking 138 points over the course of a year they won the AFC Asian Cup.
The next Fifa World Ranking will be published on Thursday 20 February 2020.