Saturday 24 December 2011

New World Rankings - great news for Samoa and American Samoa


The latest FIFA World Rankings have been released, and naturally they confirm the rise of Samoa and American Samoa from the foot of the ranking table after both recorded wins in the recent Oceania World Cup qualifying group.

Samoa’s ascent is quite stunning, leaping an incredible 55 places from equal 204th and last place to now be ranked 149th in the world.  And what is more they are now officially the second highest ranked team in Oceania behind New Zealand.  It’s incredible what winning a couple of games when hardly anyone else is playing can do for your ranking!

And as for American Samoa, never having won an official match before, or even drawn one frankly, their rise of 18 places up to 186th is taking them into nose-bleed territory.  A quite magnificent achievement for a nation that has more often than not been firmly rooted to the bottom of the world rankings.

They have also climbed above both Papua New Guinea and Cook Islands (who they beat in November of course) to be ranked 9th out of 10 in Oceania.  Heady days indeed.

This now leaves us with just 3 teams remaining as official Worst in the World; Andorra, San Marino and Montserrat.

Thursday 8 December 2011

San Marino's World Cup Qualifying Fixtures

Back on the fixtures front, most of the European qualifying group fixtures have been announced, including San Marino’s fixtures in Group H, which are as follows:

11th September 2012: San Marino v. Montenegro
12th October 2012: England v. San Marino
16th October 2012: San Marino v. Moldova
14th November 2012: Montenegro v. San Marino
22nd March 2013: San Marino v. England
26th March 2013: Poland v. San Marino
6th September 2013: Ukraine v. San Marino
10th September 2013: San Marino v. Poland
11th October 2013: Moldova v. San Marino
15th October 2013: San Marino v. Ukraine


A Blank December

After the major drama of the November fixtures for our World’s Worst down in the South Pacific, December will be distinctly underwhelming from a fixtures point of view.

To put it bluntly, none of our teams are currently scheduled to see any action this month.

What will happen later this month though is that Samoa and American Samoa will be officially no longer World’s Worst when the next FIFA rankings come out. Exciting stuff I’m sure you’ll agree.