National team rises to first place in Asia

December 06-2013

Based on its latest string of victories, the Iranian national soccer team has leapfrogged over its Asian competitors and is now ranked first in Asia, according to the latest computer ranking by FIFA, the governing body of international soccer.

Iran jumped four places in November to rank 45th in the world and first in Asia, passing perennial top-ranked Japan, which is now 48th in the world and second in Asia.

The ranking reflects a string of six straight victories under Coach Carlos Queiroz, who took over the team in April 2011.

Under Queiroz, Iran has racked up 20 wins, 11 draws and just four losses.  It has scored 71 goals or more than triple the 23 goals it has given up.

Under the FIFA computer ranking, Iran sat in fifth place in Asia in June, fourth in July, third in August, second in September and October and now first in the November ranking.

For the previous five years, Iran had almost always ranked fourth each month, with an occasional brief foray higher or lower.  Iran was last in first place from October 2006 through April 2007—seven straight months.

Globally, Iran’s best ranking ever was 15th in July 2005.  Its worst ranking was 122nd (out of 209 teams) in May 1996.  FIFA has produced the monthly rankings since 1991.

Here are the top seven teams in Asia as of the November rankings.  It is all the Asian teams ranked in the world’s top 85 teams and the only Asian teams with more than 400 points.  The first column is the Asian rank, the second column is the global rank and the last column is the number of points,

1 45 Iran 650

2 48 Japan 638

3 54 S. Korea 577

4 59 Australia 564

5 68 Uzbekistan 526

6 70 Jordan 511

7 71 UAE 508

For comparison, Spain is far out ahead in first place with 1507 points followed distantly by Germany with 1318 points.  Brazil has slipped to 10th place with 1102 points and is only barely ahead of the USA in 14th place with 1019 points.

The draw for the World Cup takes place today, December 6, in Brazil, the host for next summer’s finals.

The 32 teams that qualified for the finals have been distributed among four pots.  One team will be drawn from each pot and placed into a group of four for the first round of play.  Each team will play the other three in its group and the top two in each group will advance to the second round.

Iran has appeared in three previous World Cup finals—1978, 1998 and 2006—but has never advanced beyond the first round.  That will be its goal next summer.  In the nine games it has previously played in the finals, Iran has won only a solitary game—but that was against the USA in 1998.

Iran won’t have a chance, however, to do that again as all the Asian and all the North American teams have been placed in Pot 3.  That means Iran cannot play another Asian team or any North American team in the first round.

Here are the four pots:

Pot 1  (Seeds): Spain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Argentina, Columbia, Uruguay, Brazil.

Pot 2  (Africa and unseeded Sourth American teams): Chile, Ecuador, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Algeria, Nigeria, Cameroon.

Pot 3 (Asia and North America): Iran, Japan, South Korea, Australia, USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras.

Pot 4  (Unseeded Europeran teams): France, Netherlands, Italy, England, Portugal, Greece, Bosnia, Croatia, Russia.

The first draw will be made to move one team from Pot 4 to Pot 2 so that each pot as eight teams.