Lesotho reaches highest ever Fifa ranking

Lesotho has reached its highest ever Fifa World Ranking.

Lesotho moved up to 105 in the world for August, its best placing since the rankings were introduced in 1993. Likuena, in fact, were the highest movers in the world having climbed 29 spots.

Results of 23 new international “A” matches were taken into account for the rankings. The points from the new international “A” matches were determined using Fifa’s new confederation weightings which were recalculated following the 2014 World Cup. There have been slight adjustments in the weighting factors of most confederations. These are now: Conmebol 1.00; Uefa 0.99; AFC, Caf, OFC and Concacaf 0.85.

Nkau Lerotholi  in Lesotho's 2015 Afcon qualifying
 win over Kenya

Ten of 23 matches considered were friendlies with the remaining 13 being qualifiers for the 2015 Caf Africa Cup of Nations.

It was little surprise, therefore, that the biggest movers of the month were mainly to be found in Africa, namely Lesotho (105th, up 26), Malawi (106th, up 15), Sierra Leone (50th, up 14), Benin (77th, up 14), Botswana (86th, up 13) and Guinea-Bissau (123rd, up 13).

Meanwhile, world champions Germany continued to lead the way ahead of Argentina and the Netherlands. Elsewhere, World Cup quarterfinalists Costa Rica climbed one place to 15th. It means, like Likuena, the Los Ticos are now in their highest-ever position since the introduction of the world rankings in 1993.

Lesotho’s Ranking History

Date	Ranking
August 2014	105
July 2014	131
June 2014	139
May 2014	141
April 2014	138
March 2014	143
February 2014	139
January 2014	138
2013	138
2012	159
2011	147
2010	170
2009	150
2008	161
2007	154
2006	160
2005	145
2004	144
2003	120
2002	132
2001	126
2000	136
1999	154
1998	140
1997	149
1996	162
1995	149
1994	135
1993	138

Lesotho's average position since the Fifa World Rankings were introduced in 1993 is 146.

Information from fifa.com used