Belgium and Canada take 2021 honours

•    Belgium top the FIFA/Coca-Cola Rankings for the fourth consecutive year
•    This year’s ‘Most Improved Side’ are Canada with a 130.32-point gain
•    Qatar in Top 50 as we head into 2022

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, only 352 full internationals were played in 2020. Not since 1987 (323 matches) had so few games been played in a calendar year. By contrast, planet football made up for lost time in 2021 with a record breaking 1116 matches played.

And while the quantity of games changed radically from one year to the next, the top ranked team in the FIFA/ Coca-Cola World Ranking has remained the same! For the fourth year in a row, Belgium (1^st) end the calendar year in pole position, albeit only just ahead of Brazil (2^nd)by 2.1 points. France (3^rd) complete the podium for 2021.

For their part, Canada (40^th) are the year’s ‘Most Improved Side’ having picked up no fewer than 130.32 points over the last 12 months. Their journey to the semi-finals of the 2021 Gold Cup as well as impressive results in FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ qualifying have been major factors in their rise.

Winners of UEFA EURO 2020 and the Copa America 2021 respectively, Italy (6^th + 115.77 points compared to December 2020) and Argentina (5^th +108.51 points compared to December 2020), have also seen their points tally increase dramatically this year.

The same goes for the USA (11^th + 103.51 points compared to December 2020) and England (4^th + 85.52 points compared to December 2020). Equatorial Guinea (114^th + 59.78 points compared to December 2020) made the most impressive progress among African teams, while Saudi Arabia (51^st + 81.71 points compared to December 2020) did the same in Asia.

However, just in terms of last month, the most improved Asian team are Indonesia (164^th + 11.13 points). Winners of the FIFA Arab Cup 2021™, Algeria (29^th +3) jointly made the best progress in terms of places, along with Qatar (48^th + 3), who finished third at the tournament, and Thailand (115^th +3).