Bafana Bafana fall in Fifa World Rankings

The South African national team dropped two places in the monthly World Rankings, as released by Fifa on Thursday morning

Bafana Bafana's position is now down to 66, which might be surprising after some important positive results such as victory against Nigeria away from home in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.

Though, it was in the friendly games, such as against Zambia that South Africa slipped up with a weakened team. One should also take into account that sometimes you can win games and still fall in the rankings because it depends on your results in previous years, as well as your rivals results.

Bafana's now 13th in Africa, with Egypt leading the continent. The Pharaohs are 25th in the world.

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Brazil have returned to the top of the FIFA rankings, ending Germany's one-month reign at the summit.

The reigning World Cup champions, who had moved into first place in July after winning the Confederations Cup, dropped into second for the August rankings, despite the fact that neither they nor Brazil played no games since the last update.

Argentina, meanwhile, remain third in the August rankings update, but there was movement beneath them as Switzerland rose to fourth and Poland entered the top five for the first time in their history. Moving up one place into fifth in the FIFA rankings marks continued improvement for Robert Lewandowski and co., who jumped four places last month.

Ranking	Country	Movement
1	Brazil	Up 1
2	Germany	Down 1
3	Argentina	No Movement
4	Switzerland	Up 1
5	Poland	Up 1
6	Portugal	Down 2
7	Chile	No Movement
8	Colombia	No Movement
9	Belgium	Up 1
10	France	Down 1
11	Spain	No Movement
12	Italy	No Movement
13	England	No Movement
14	Mexico	Up 2
15	Peru	Down 1
16	Croatia	Down 1
17	Uruguay	No Movement
18	Wales	Up 2
19	Sweden	Down 1
20	Iceland	Down 1

Elsewhere, after moving up four places last month, Euro 2016 winners Portugal dropped two places into sixth and there were no new entries in the top 10, with giants Spain (11th), Italy (12th) and England (13th) remaining stationary.

Gareth Bale's Wales strengthened their position in the top 20 after moving up two places into 18th, but Sweden and Iceland each fell one place to 19th and 20th respectively.

Following their Gold Cup success, the USA climbed nine places and now occupy 26th place, while defeated finalists Jamaica achieved the biggest move by points, catapulting 19 places into 57th.

Northern Ireland reached their highest ever ranking last month, but have dropped one place in the latest edition to 23rd, while their southern counterparts the Republic of Ireland remain unchanged at 29th. The Netherlands, meanwhile, continued their slide down the table after dropping four places into 36th position.

Next month's rankings update will be announced on September 14.

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