The Super Eagles’ inability to win a single match all through this year has left Nigeria stagnant on the monthly global rankings by world soccer governing body, FIFA, which placed the three-time African champions 35th on the overall scales for the end of 2020.
However, megasportsarena.com can report that, while the Eagles end 2020 at the same spot they had the previous month, when they fell three slots to 35th in the world and remain Africa’s fourth best, they are joined level on the same points with high-riding Morocco.
This comes after FIFA’s latest compilations gave both Nigeria and Morocco 1,474 points each on the last global ratings for the outgoing year, but the Eagles are still ranked fourth in Africa, where Senegal remain the continent’s best ranked team at 20th in the world.
In a year during which football activity had been distorted by the Coronavirus Pandemic, Nigeria drew three matches and lost once, but failed to win a single game from a total fixture list of two international friendlies and same number of competitive matches, which came against a single nation.
The breakdown shows that the Eagles, who ended last year buoyed by their third place finish at the Africa Cup of Nations, lost their first match of 2020 to the team that beat them in the AFCON semi-finals, as they fell 1-0 to Algeria in October, during an international friendly played in Austria, where they then drew 1-1 with Tunisia in a similar game four days later.
Afterwards, Gernot Rohr’s side drew 4-4 at home with Sierra Leone in the AFCON 2022 qualifiers in November, and four days later played out a goalless draw away to same team in the reverse fixture, with both results marking the beginning of their slump on the log, considering that The Leone Stars have always been rated lower than the Eagles over the years.
The Nigerian team will now hope to get better results and improve their monthly rankings when they return to action in March 2021, when they host Lesotho and visit Benin Republic, from which games they are expected to book their passage to AFCON 2022 in Cameroon.
Of Nigeria’s three rivals in the AFCON qualifiers, Benin Republic are 83rd, Sierra Leone 116th and Lesotho 143rd on the word scale, while the Eagles’ Qatar 2022 World Cup qualification group opponents Cape Verde, Central African Republic and Liberia are 81st, 114th and 152nd respectively.
The top three African countries remain unchanged, with Senegal at number one, followed by Tunisia and Algeria, while the global top five also remain unchanged, with Belgium leading the log, followed by France, Brazil, England and Portugal in that order.
