Scots at all-time ranking high
Scotland's players celebrate an historic win over France in Paris
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Wednesday, 24, Oct 2007 04:35
Scotland have reached their highest ever position of 13th in the latest Fifa world rankings, which have been released today.
Following an impressive 3-1 victory over Ukraine at Hampden Park earlier this month, Alex McLeish's men jumped one place from 14th as Mexico dropped two places to 16th.
Scotland continue to hold one of the two automatic qualification places in their tough Euro 2008 group, leading world champions Italy by a point ahead of the showdown between the two teams in November.
Last year's World Cup winners lost their place as the number one team to Argentina, who have enjoyed a good start to their South Africa 2010 qualification campaign. Brazil also leapfrogged the Italians into second.
The leaders of Scotland's group, France, jumped two places in the rankings to fourth overall.
England paid for their 2-1 defeat in Russia by dropping out of the top ten to 11th, although their conquerors in Moscow were the biggest movers in the upper echelons of the rankings, rising ten places to 16th.
The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are both unchanged at 32nd and 36th in the world. Wales remain the lowest ranked of all the home nations, dropping five places to 58th after defeat to Cyprus and a narrow 2-1 win over lowly San Marino.
Full Fifa top 20
1- Argentina
2- Brazil
3- Italy
4- France
5- Germany
6- Spain
7- Netherlands
8- Portugal
9- Czech Republic
10- Croatia
11- England
12- Romania
13- Scotland
14- Greece
15- Mexico
16- Russia
17- Uruguay
18- USA
19- Nigeria
20- Poland