Indian football team’s winless streak continues with 1-1 draw against Malaysia
The Indian football team's winless streak this year continues as they played a 1-1 draw against the lower-ranked Malaysia at Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad.
The Indian football team, courtesy of their winless campaign in the joint qualifiers of FIFA World Cup 2022 and AFC Asian Cup 2023, have slipped two places down to 108 in the year-ending FIFA rankings released on Thursday.
When Igor Stimac took the reins of the Indian team, they were ranked 101. But dismal performances on a continuous basis have taken their toll in the rankings. In the October rankings the Blue Tigers had 1201 points which have come down to 1187 in the latest rankings.
However, the Blue Tigers have climbed one place up in terms of the Asian team’s positions. India were placed 19th in the last rankings which were released on October 24 but now find themselves placed 18th among the AFC countries.
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In the overall rankings, positions of the top 10 of the world remained unchanged except only Portugal and Croatia have exchanged their places to be the seventh and sixth places respectively.
Belgium will finish the year as the number one football team in the world while France, Brazil, England and Uruguay have retained the following positions till fifth. Spain, Argentina and Colombo are the other teams in the top 10.
FIFA World Cup 2022 hosts Qatar, who are in India’s World Cup qualifiers group, have moved two places up to be the fifth-best Asian team with an overall rank of 55.
Oman, another team in India’s qualifiers group, have climbed three places to sit at 81. The middle-east nation is now the 11th best Asian team. They have had a good qualifiers campaign and won all their matches except one against Asian champions Qatar.
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