The Super Eagles are presently ranked the 51st best team in the world in the current FIFA ranking released on January 18, 2018.
Despite performing remarkably in the Russia 2018 World Cup qualifiers, Gernot Rohr’s men are 9th in Africa trailing Tunisia, Senegal, Egypt, and Morocco.
The team also falls behind Congo DR, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Ghana who did not make it through to the World Cup.
The world football governing body have a criteria as to how teams earn points according to their performances during a period of time.
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According to FIFA’s basic rule, a team’s total number of points over a four-year period is determined by adding;
The average number of points gained from matches during the past 12 months and the average number of points gained from matches older than 12 months (depreciates yearly).
The consideration in earning a point is determined by the importance of the match, how strong the opposition is and the confederation which the country belong.
The grading system is the usual three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss. In the 2017 calendar year, the Super Eagles played seven FIFA recognized matches with four wins, two draws and losses, earning 14 points in the process.
Looking at the importance of matches whether it be a friendly, a FIFA World Cup qualifier, the Confederations Cup or the FIFA World Cup itself, all these levels of games counts in terms of taking points.
Moreover, the strength of the opposing team lies on the ranking as Nigeria’s opponents in 2017 were Senegal, Togo, South Africa, Cameroon, Zambia, Algeria and Argentina respectively.
However, the strength of the confederation is also factor in climbing up the table because the dominance of the confederation is calculated by the number of victories in the last three World Cup competitions.
As earlier stated, a team’s ranking is an accumulation of a team’s number of points over the past four years.
Over three years, Nigeria had a rate of 44% wins in 2015 with Late Stephen Keshi before Sunday Oliseh took over in July, 60% wins in 2016 and 44.4% in 2017 with Gernot Rohr after took over the vacant position in August 2016.
See the table below;
Super Eagles' FIFA ranking from 2014 - January 2018
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According to the table, the Super Eagles were ranked 37th as African Champions in 2013, 43rd in 2014 after the World Cup, 66th in 2015 when the country failed to qualify for AFCON and moved up to 51st from 2016 to 2018 since Gernot Rohr was assigned coach.
The FIFA formula rewards consistency and win over a four year period and the Super Eagles does not portray that kind of streak.
However, the 2013 champions are one of the most feared team in the continent and are undoubtedly not a weak side going by the present standings in the last FIFA ranking.
The stance of FIFA in the current world ranking can be argued that a low win ratio can be caused by a number of factors including; changing of staffs, high or low morale, lack of proper facilities and distance traveled for a match which affects the tiredness of players.
Nigerian football is currently on the rise compared to when it nose-dived at the concluding part of the late Stephen Keshi’s era and Sunday Oliseh’s poor run of form as coach in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Be it as it may, the Super Eagles are still one of the teams to beat at the forth-coming World Cup in Russia as fortunes are currently smiling on the youngest squad in the qualification process and perhaps the world showpiece.
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Source: Sports.naija.ng
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