Newly-crowned European champions Spain have climbed to the top of the latest world rankings published by world soccer's governing body FIFA yesterday.

It is the first time since the introduction of the rankings in 1992 that Spain, who were rated fourth last month, have been listed as the world's best team.

The ranking system is based on international results over the past four years with more points awarded for wins in major tournaments.

Germany, losers of Sunday's Euro 2008 final, climbed two places to third position behind Italy, who rose one spot despite going out of the tournament at the quarter-final stage.

Former leaders Argentina saw their nine-month spell at the top of the rankings come to an end, tumbling down to sixth place after a disappointing month that included two draws in World Cup qualifying against Ecuador and Brazil.

The 2004 European champions Greece suffered an even bigger drop, from eighth to 18th, after losing the points gained from their shock title win and suffering a group stage exit from this year's event.

Russia's surprise run to the semi-finals has seen them surge 13 places to 11th, their best ranking in more than ten years.

After failing even to qualify for the tournament, England dropped six places to 15th, their lowest position since 2001.

There were also a number of major movers outside of Europe.

Teams to have made striking progress in the top 100 include Nigeria (26th, up 8), Iran (37th, up 11) and Saudi Arabia (49th, up 5), as well as a raft of teams who have climbed 20 or more places: Burkina Faso (64th, up 47), Gabon (74th, up 20), Cuba (78th, up 26), Cape Verde Islands (85th, up 24), Surinam (87th, up 58), Kenya (92nd, up 23) and Korea DPR (94th, up 24).

All of these teams have played between two and five 2010 World Cup qualifiers in recent weeks, winning at least once.

Both of July's biggest movers (Surinam and Burkina Faso) won all of their recent qualifiers.

Chad (127th, up 21), Surinam and Rwanda (87th, up 19) are all in their highest-ever position in the world rankings.

Malta retained the previous ranking at no.134 with 204 points.

FIFA rankings

(previous position in brackets)

1. (4) Spain 1,557
2. (3) Italy 1,404
3. (5) Germany 1,364
4. (2) Brazil 1,344
5. (10) Netherlands 1,299
6. (1) Argentina 1,298
7. (15) Croatia 1,282
8. (6) Czech Republic 1,146
9. (11) Portugal 1,104
10. (7) France 1,053
11. (24) Russia 1,023
12. (12) Romania 1,021
13. (13) Cameroon 1,011
14. (20) Turkey 1,010
15. (9) England 1,003
16. (17) Scotland 988
17. (18) Bulgaria 930
18. (8) Greece 911
19. (14) Mexico 906
20. (16) Ghana 885.

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