Football Flash

Romania has dropped in FIFA standings

Florin Orban, 13.04.2017, 13:24

Romania’s national football team is sinking without trace in world standings. In the latest ranking made public last week, Romania went down 8 places, as compared to the previous one. Romania is now ranked 47, the lowest for our country since 2012, when Romania was 57th placed, the all-time low for our national football team.

Exactly a year ago, in April 2016, Romania was ranked 19th. The downgrading follows a series of very poor results for Romania in the preliminaries ahead of the World Cup to be hosted by Russia in 2018. So far, in the five Group E fixtures played so far, Romania only won one game, against Armenia. Our team drew against Montenegro, Kazakhstan and Denmark, losing at home to Poland.

Of the other Group E teams, the best-ranked is Poland, currently in 11th place. Poland climbed one spot as compared to last month. Denmark went down three positions and is now in 51st place, while Montenegro went up two positions, to 62nd place. Armenia climbed 18 spots, to 67th place, while Kazakhstan dropped 11 places, ranking 105th.

Brazil is the new leader in FIFA standings, followed by Argentina and Germany.

In other news from football, the Turkish media writes Romanian coach Mircea Lucescu might return to the Turkish First League starting this summer. Lucescu allegedly will leave his current club, Zenit Sankt Petersburg of Russia and will take on Istanbul’s Fenerbahce, a team currently ranking 3rd in the tables. Lucescu previously coached two other teams from Istanbul, Galatasaray and Besiktas, winning the championship trophy with both teams. (Translated by V. Palcu)