Nigeria drop in latest FIFA ranking, retain 4th spot in Africa, to face Portugal, Costa Rica in Nov. friendlies
Nigeria’s senior men’s national football team, the Super Eagles have dropped one spot to 31st in the latest FIFA rankings.
This follows their 2-1 loss to the Desert Foxes of Algeria in Constantine last week.
Also, the Nigerian side played only one match during the FIFA International window in September – meaning the dropped six points since other teams played at least two games.
Despite this drop, Nigeria maintains its fourth position in Africa, as AFCON Champions Senegal retained their number one spot on the continent and 18th in the world.
They are followed by second-place Morocco, who also moved one place in the world to 22nd.
Tunisia maintained its position as the third-best team in Africa and 30th in the world.
Algeria leapfrogged Egypt to complete the top five places in Africa while also moving three places in the world to the 37th position.
Brazil retained their world number one status.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has concluded arrangement for more international friendly matches for the national team, this November.
The Super Eagles are expected to move up the FIFA ranking if they win the matches against the World Cup-bound Portugal and Costa Rica in friendlies slated for November.
Eagles will play against Costa Rica on November 10 at the at the Estadio Nacional in San Jose. Both sides have only met once at the senior level and it was also another friendly game in 2011 where the La Tricolor, as they are fondly called, emerged 1-0 winners.
Thereafter, Nigeria will confront Portugal on November 17.
It will be the first time that Nigeria and Portugal will meet at the senior level even though both countries played against each other three times at the U-20 World Cup with Portugal winning all three meetings (twice in 1989 and 2013).
