By Robert Kayindi James
Beating the Falcons of Sudan, both home and away didn’t only earn the Uganda Cranes a slot at the 2016 CHAN finals that will be in Kigali, Rwanda but has also helped the country rise in the latest FIFA rankings.
Uganda has risen by seven slots according to the latest FIFA rankings released on November 5th at the World Football governing body headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.
The Cranes who were previously ranked 75th are now 68th in the world and more notably 14th in Africa with a tally of 491 points. Their points rose by a figure of 36 as compared to last month’s 455points.
As Uganda continues to dominate the CECAFA Region summit, neighbours of Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan improved in their rankings to 125th, 135th and 134th respectively.
Being on the losing side against Uganda recently, Sudan dropped by 44 places to go 128th while 2018 World Cup qualifier opponents of Togo also slipped from 79th to 88th.
The Cranes travel to Lome first to face off with the Sparrow Hawks on Thursday, 12th November before a return fixture on Sunday, 15th November at Namboole.
Africa Nations Cup 2017 qualifiers group opponents of Comoros improved by 16 slots to 177th, Botswana rose by 6 slots to 105th while Burkina Faso dropped by 17 slots to 93rd.
On the African continent, Algeria lost their number one spot to Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire) who are also ranked 22nd in the world as the former fell to 26th.
The next FIFA rankings will be released early December, 2015.
Email Robert: Robert.k.circles@gmail.com