There has been some movement in the latest edition of the FIFA world rankings before the 2014 World Cup gets under way in Brazil next week.

Although the leading duo of Spain and Germany remain unchanged, Brazil will start the tournament in third place, having leapfrogged Portugal, while Argentina (5th, up 2) and Switzerland (6th, up 2) have each climbed two places and England (10th, up 1) have returned to the top ten at the expense of Greece (12th, down 2).

A glance at the respective strengths of the World Cup groups makes for interesting reading: taking the average ranks and points totals of each set of four teams into account, Group D (Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy) and Group G (Germany, Portugal, Ghana, USA) are the strongest groups. Group D is the only one containing three top-ten teams, while Group H (Belgium, Algeria, Russia, South Korea) has no such team.

Malta have lost four places in the latest list, slipping to 132nd in the world with 204 ranking points.

As this month’s chart is based on the 112 ‘A’ international matches played up to May 30, Pietro Ghedin’s men are likely to lose further ground in the next rankings after their 1-0 reverse to Gibraltar in Faro, Portugal on Wednesday.

Top 10 countries
1. Spain 1,485; 2. Germany 1,300; 3. Brazil 1,242; 4. Portugal 1,189; 5. Argentina 1,175; 6. Switzerland 1,149; 7. Uruguay 1,147; 8. Colombia 1,137; 9. Italy 1,104; 10. England 1,090.

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