FIFA World Rankings: Iran lose Asia No. 1 status to Japan for the first time since 2014
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Loading...Fox Sports Asia – HONG KONG, IR Iran national football team have lost their status as Asia’s No. 1 side in the FIFA World Rankings to Japan for the first time since December 2014.
Team Melli have had a disastrous campaign in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers so far under their new head coach Marc Wilmots by their standards suffering defeats to both Bahrain and Iraq in their second round meetings.
And this run of poor results has resulted in them giving up their top rank among Asian nations in the FIFA World Rankings on the latest rankings table published by FIFA on Thursday.
Iran have been the No.1 side in Asia since December 2014 to only be displaced by another Asian nation this month as they dropped six places in the world rankings from 27 (in October 24, 2019) to 33 (in November 28).
During this period, they became national team to top the rankings table in a confederation for the longest continuous period between December 2014 and May 2018 when they were displaced by Australia, an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) member, for a very short period only to return to the top in July 2018.
Iran, who are currently third in Group C of the 2022 World Cup and 2023 AFC Asian Cup Joint-Qualifiers, are five points behind table toppers Iraq and three behind Bahrain but with a game in hand.
