Malaysia drop four spots in August FIFA rankings

Malaysia fell four rungs in the latest world football ranking issued by FIFA today.

Among the factors attributing to the ranking slump is the 1-4 defeat of Harimau Malaya (national squad) to Tajikistan in a friendly match in Dushanbe last Friday.

The latest position saw Malaysia under coach Dollah Salleh ranked 155th in the world, sharing the same spot with Puerto Rico.

Malaysia was ranked 154th in January, 150 (February), 141 (March), 142 (April), 145 (May), 153 (June) and 151 in July.

At 155th spot, the national squad is in company of teams such as Guyana (153), Swaziland (158) as well as St. Kitts and Nevis, which is ranked 159th in the world.

Among Asean countries, Malaysia fell two rungs to fifth spot behind the Philippines (128), Vietnam (139), Singapore (152) and Indonesia (153).

At the Asian level, Malaysia also dropped three rungs to 29 out of 46 countries.

Meanwhile, 2014 World Cup champions, Germany kept the top spot as the best team in the world with 1,736 points.

World Cup finalists, Argentina and the Netherland maintained their positions as second and third best teams when they collected 1,604 and 1,507 points respectively.

The monthly FIFA ranking involves 209 countries.