Golden Jaguars ranked 174th by FIFA for September

The fallout from Guyana’s embarrassing campaigns in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers and the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup Preliminary Round, continues as the Golden Jaguars football team has dropped to a dismal ranking of 174th out of 210 affiliated nations.

This was confirmed by the world governing body FIFA yesterday following the official publication of the September rankings. The Guyanese fell one place from their previous ranking of 173rd. This was influenced by their inactivity following an unenviable record of three consecutive losses spread between the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers and Gold Cup Preliminaries. Guyana lost to St Kitts and Nevis (0-3) and Puerto Rico (0-2) during World Cup Qualification. In the regional tournament, the Golden Jaguars suffered an embarrassing defeat to Guatemala (0-4) in the first round. Overall, the team has suffered four losses in their last five fixtures. Presently, the team sits on 958.87 points and is currently sandwiched between 173rd ranked Caribbean unit St. Vincent and Grenadines, and Asian outfit, Indonesia, on 175th

Guyana’s best ever ranking was 86th and was achieved in 2010. On the other hand, their worst position was 185th in 2004. Overall, Guyana’s average ranking has been 150th. The next ranking is set to be published on October 21.

Unable to improve on their rankings as they are not scheduled to return to the international circuit until May 2022, Guyana is expected to slip further down the world ladder in the coming rankings.

The men’s FIFA World Ranking for national teams in association football is currently led by Belgium.

The teams are ranked based on their game results with the most successful teams being ranked highest. The rankings were introduced in December 1992, and eight teams (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain) have held the top position with Brazil spending the longest at the top.

A points system is used, with points being awarded based on the results of all FIFA-recognised full international matches. The ranking system has been revamped on several occasions, generally responding to criticism that the preceding calculation method did not effectively reflect the relative strengths of the national teams.

The current version of the ranking system was first used on 16 August, 2018, adapted from the Elo rating system used in chess.