Black Stars ranked seventh best team at 2010 FIFA World Cup
Ghana’s Black Stars has been ranked the seventh best team at the ongoing South Africa 2010 FIFA World Cup.
The Stars, the only African team to advance past the group stage before they crashed to Uruguay at the quarter-finals, were ranked ahead of reigning and defending World Champions Italy and are also the only African team in the top 10.
The final standings of the competition was released by World soccer governing body, Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) on Thursday ahead of the third-place playoff and the grand finale on Sunday, 11 July.
Conspicuously missing from the standings are the first to fourth placed teams since the outcome of the matches were unknown at the time of the release of the rankings with Spain, Netherlands, Germany and Uruguay expected to fill the vacuum later on.
Information gathered by GNA Sports from the FIFA Secretariat in Sandton has it that the standings was influenced by the performance of the respective teams including points haul from matches, goals scored, goals conceded and the general team conduct amongst others.
The current position of the Black Stars serves as a great improvement on the team’s ranking after its 13th position in the Germany 2006 FIFA World Cup, where they were also the only African team to have gone past the first round.
Five-time World Champions, Brazil and their bitterest rivals, Argentina were ranked fifth and sixth respectively.
Four-time Africa champions, Cameroon who lost all their three games were ranked 31st just above Korea DPR, who perched at the bottom (32nd spot), and also recording the heaviest defeat by losing 0-7 to Portugal.
Cote d’Ivoire placed 17th, hosts South Africa are 20th, Nigeria and Algeria on 27th and 28th respectively.
Below is the full rankings from 5th to 32nd positions;
5. Argentina
6. Brazil
7. Ghana
8. Paraguay
9. Japan
10. Chile
11. Portugal
12. USA
13. England
14. Mexico
15. Korea Republic
16. Slovakia
17. Cote d’Ivoire
18. Slovenia
19. Switzerland
20. South Africa
21. Australia
22. New Zealand
23. Serbia
24. Denmark
25. Greece
26. Italy
27. Nigeria
28. Algeria
29. France
30. Honduras
31. Cameroon
32. Korea DPR
Source: GNA