India national football team finishes at 135th in FIFA rankings; the best in the last six years

In 2009 India ranked 134 in FIFA’s annual ranking. Indian national team coach Stephen Constantine said this improvement in ranking happened due to hard work of his players and support staffs.

Published: December 22, 2016 7:58 PM IST

By Sudipta Biswas

India national football team finishes at 135th in FIFA rankings; the best in the last six years
Image credit; Goal.com

Indian national football team finished at 135 in 2016, their best in the last six years, in the newly released FIFA rankings on Thursday.

In 2009 India ranked 134 in FIFA’s annual ranking.  Indian national team coach Stephen Constantine said this improvement in ranking happened due to hard work of his players and support staffs.

“It can’t be achieved without the help of the players. We have an exceptional batch of players as we are in the process of building the team for the future,” Constantine said.

However, Constantine didn’t want to go overboard with the new rankings. He wanted to do better capitalising on the improvement his players made in recent time. (I-League football fixtures announced, Bengaluru FC to face Shillong Lajong FC first up)

“One of my priorities was to improve the national team ranking when I took over. The results do state that we have improved but there’s still a lot more to achieve,” he added.

“Football results are always determined by the support which one receives off the field. I am grateful both to Mr. Patel (AIFF President Praful Patel) and Mr. Das (AIFF General Secretary Kushal Das) for allowing me to do the things in the manner I wanted to do. Both of them envisage a long-term plan for Indian football and it’s a total team effort,” he maintained. (All India Football Federation elections given a go ahead by the Delhi High Court)

“There have been so many positives for us in 2016. Right from the National Team winning the SAFF Championship to the Women’s Team winning the SAG Gold to the National Team beating a team as high as Puerto Rico 4-1 (ranked 114 at that time) in an International Friendly, things are looking bright,” he said.

“The developments off the field saw us win the 2016 AFC Award for the Best Developing Member Association and we also had Uvena Fernandes, the first even Indian referee to officiate a World Cup final match. And off course we need to remember that we had an Indian Club in the AFC Cup final for the first time ever and one of our youth development product becoming the first Indian player to play in the Europa League,” he added.

The draw for the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers UAE 2017 will be held on January 23, 2017, and India would be playing their first match in the Qualifiers on March 28.

Meanwhile, Argentina finished at the top position while their South American rival Brazil finished at the second position. At the same time among the Europeans team current World Cup winner Germany finished at the third position while Belgium finished at the fifth position. The top 10 is comprised of five South American and five European teams.

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