MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. The Russian national football team remained in the 38th place of the FIFA World Ranking, according to the list published by the world’s governing body of football on Thursday.
The Russian national football team played no international-level matches since November 20, when it met for a friendly game against the Cuban national football squad. The Russian team is currently ranked 38th with 1498.84 points, according to the newly-published FIFA Rankings.
According to FIFA, there were no shifts in the Top-10 of global football powers since the last edition of the World Rankings was published.
The FIFA World Ranking is still topped by Argentina (1855.2 points), which is followed by France in 2nd place (1845.44) and England in 3rd place (1800.05).
The rest of FIFA’s Top-10 national teams are: 4th Belgium (1798.46); 5th Brazil (1784.09); 6th the Netherlands (1745.48); 7th Portugal (1745.06); 8th Spain (1732.64); 9th Italy (1718.82) and 10th Croatia (1717.57).
The next edition of the FIFA World Ranking will be published on April 4, 2024.
The Russian national football team is set to play next month two friendly matches, namely against Serbia on March 21 and Paraguay on March 25. Both matches will be played at the over 25,700-seat capacity VTB-Arena in Moscow and, according to the Russian Football Union’s (RFU) press office, they will be officially registered by the FIFA World Ranking.
Russia’s football ban
The International Association Football Federation (FIFA) announced on February 28, 2022 that the Russian national team and all professional clubs representing the country were barred from taking part in FIFA tournaments.
In turn, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) made a similar decision in regard to the Russian national football team’s participation in UEFA tournaments.
Both FIFA and UEFA cited Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine as grounds for their respective bans on Russian teams’ participation in competitions.
Since sanctions were introduced, the Russian national football squad has played a host of friendlies against other countries. In 2023, Russia played friendly matches against Iran (1-1), Iraq (2-0), Qatar (1-1), Cameron (1-0), Kenya (2-2), Cuba (8-0).