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Vietnamese team rise in FIFA rankings for the first time this year
  • | Nhan Dan | November 30, 2020 05:39 AM
For the first time this year, the Vietnamese football team have climbed up in the FIFA rankings to occupy No. 93 position in the world, while continuing to maintain the 14th place in Asia and No. 1 in Southeast Asia.




The national team climbed to the 93rd in the latest FIFA rankings for November 2020.

Accordingly, in the latest FIFA rankings for November 2020, coach Park Hang-seo’s side rose one place to No. 93 in the world with 1,258 points.


In Asia, Vietnam are still ranked 14th and the number one team in Southeast Asia, followed by Thailand (No. 111 in the world, up 2 places), Philippines (No. 124), Myanmar (No. 137) and Malaysia (No. 153).

This is the 39th consecutive month that the Golden Stars have occupied the leading position in Southeast Asia since September 2017.

Despite spending almost the entire year without international competition due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the Vietnamese team still got a boost because teams ranked close to Vietnam have played more matches.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak in March, all national team-level tournaments have been postponed, cancelled or forced to be moved to 2021. That is the reason why the FIFA rankings have been near frozen for months.

It was not until the football world football was back with the UEFA Nations League in early September, that the rankings saw a slight change, though not by much.

In the following months, matches under the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers for South America, as well as UEFA EURO 2021, CAF Africa Cup of Nations and UEFA Nations League play-offs continued to revitalise the FIFA rankings further, as the change in the position of the competing teams also led to a shift in the rankings of the other teams, even though these teams didn't play at all.

In Southeast Asia, the Vietnamese team gained one place to reach No. 93 and Thailand even went up two places to rank No. 111 in the world without accumulating any points.

Japan, Iran and the Republic of Korea are still the three strongest teams in Asia with 1,502 points (No. 27), 1,496 points (No. 29) and 1,465 points (No. 38), respectively.

The five leading positions in the world on the FIFA rankings in November did not change, belonging to Belgium, France, Brazil, England and Portugal, respectively.

The most notable development in the Top 10 is Uruguay dropping 1 place (from 7th to 8th), while Mexico and Italy have made their return to the Top 10 after nine and four years, respectively, when they both climbed two places this month.

A little further down, Romania (37th, +7) and Hungary (40th, +7) have also made impressive gains, while Egypt (49th, +3) and Cameroon (50th, +3) moved into the Top 50. However, the biggest climbers this month were two other African sides: Equatorial Guinea (134th, +10) and Burundi (138th, +10).

The next FIFA rankings – the final in 2020 – will be announced on December 10.

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