World Cup seeds Switzerland slide out of FIFA top 10
LONDON (Reuters) - Switzerland, who were among the top seeds for the World Cup finals this summer, have dropped out of FIFA's top 10 world rankings after a poor start to their Euro 2016 qualifying campaign. Portugal, who surprisingly lost 1-0 at home to Albania in their opening European qualifier, have moved back into the top 10 for the first time since July and are in ninth place in the listings published on Thursday. Switzerland, who lost to England and Slovenia in their opening two qualifiers, slipped from 10th to 12th in the rankings while Portugal rose two places from 11th. The top three positions are unchanged from September's listings with world champions Germany in top spot, Argentina second and Colombia third. Belgium have climbed to fourth place -- their highest ever position. Former world champions Spain have continued their slide from the summit they inhabited for so long, dropping another two places to 10th following their defeat to Slovakia in the European qualifiers. Besides Belgium, three other teams have achieved their highest-ever ranking with Algeria moving up to 15th, Iceland up to 28th and Antigua and Barbuda up to 70th. No Asian team is in the top 50 places with Iran the highest at 51st. The best movers were Togo, who moved up 73 places from 125th to 52nd. Top ten (last month's places in parentheses): 1 (1) Germany 2 (2) Argentina 3 (3) Colombia 4 (5) Belgium 5 (4) Netherlands 6 (6) Brazil 7 (9) France 8 (7) Uruguay 9 (11) Portugal 10 (8) Spain (Reporting by Mike Collett; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
