The United States dropped back to 25th in the FIFA rankings released earlier this week and the squad has only played in a few unimportant friendly matches since the World Cup wrapped up this summer. With that being said European teams had the chance to move up the board with more crucial matches then the ones being played around the rest of the world considering the start of the Euro 2012 qualifiers a month back. And several teams took advantage of the opportunity to slide up the board from the European bracket of teams.
Croatia and Russia, two clubs spurned from playing in the World Cup this summer, both moved into the top ten with undefeated starts to their Euro 2012 campaign. Frustrated France also eclipsed the top twenty yet again and the squad is happy to be away from their historic lowest rating and back into good company in the top twenty. Slovenia also has improved to a national record best 15th in total rankings and Australia was the best Oceanic team with a ranking of 21st in the world. Egypt was the best African side with an 11th seed ranking as well proving yet another World Cup absentee among the best in the world.
The top five spots had little activity and World Cup winning Spain remains the #1 overall ranked club in the world despite the fact that they were torched by Argentina in a friendly over a month back. The Netherlands are fittingly the #2 team in the world, followed by World Cup superheroes Brazil and Germany. Argentina was rewarded the final spot in the top five and England finished in sixth place.
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