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| Sports |
| Flames soar high on Fifa rankings |
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by
Leonard Sharra , 14 July 2006
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06:30:12
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Flames’ German coach Bukhard Ziese should be the happiest person, having guided the side to their highest ever spot on the Fifa world rankings from 26th to 19th on the African Fifa rankings.
Latest Fifa world rankings, posted on the Fifa Website on Wednesday indicate the Flames have moved 27 steps up the world rankings and seven steps up the African rankings after winning the Four-Nations tournament hosted by Mozambique on its independence anniversary celebrations last month.
The 2-1 win over Botswana’s Zebras during the country’s independence anniversary celebrations on July 6 has also helped boost the Flames’ standing on both the world and continental rankings.
This means the Flames, who were ranked 107th on the world rankings last month are now 80th in the world. According, to Fifa records, this is the highest ever ranking achieved by the Flames on the global rankings.
With the latest rankings, the Flames are now above Botswana, who have dropped from 24th to 27th in Africa and remained stuck on position 104 in the world. Despite failing to make it to the World Cup finals in Germany, Nigeria remain the highest ranked team in Africa followed by Cameroon, who also failed to make it to Germany 2006.
Ivory Coast, who were making their maiden appearance at the World Cup are third.
Commenting on the Flames’ achievement, Fam president Walter Nyamilandu said: “This shows we are moving in the right direction and the development will give Malawian players a lot of opportunities to play overseas. This also tells us that we need more international friendly games to go higher on the Fifa rankings. We have been suffering in the past two to three years because we were only relying on international competitions, which have not helped matters for us.”
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