Mallory Pugh celebrates her goal against Uzbekistan goalkeeper Laylo Tilovova on April 9. (© Kyle Robertson/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK)
With the Concacaf W Championship and an opportunity to qualify for the 2023 Women’s World Cup and 2024 Paris Olympics looming next month, the U.S. women’s national team remained atop the FIFA rankings, which were released on Friday.
Sweden stayed at No. 2 and France did not move from the third spot.
But there was change below the Americans.
Beaten by Serbia (36th, +2) in an Australia/New Zealand 2023 qualifier, Germany (5th, -1) peddown to fifth, allowing Netherlands (4th, +1) to jump ahead.
The only other notable changes in the top 20 are one-place drops for Korea Republic (18th, -1) and Switzerland (20th, -1) and one-place rises for Iceland (17th, +1) and Belgium (19th, +1).
To find the highest climber, you had to look outside the top 100, where St. Kitts and Nevis rose eight places (130th, +8).
Seychelles (160th, -), Burundi (169th, -) and British Virgin Islands (174th, -) joined the rankings, taking the teams included to 181 from FIFA’s 211 member associations.
Slovenia (45th, +2) and Philippines (53rd, +1) reached their highest ever positions in the rankings.
There should be plenty of changes in the weeks ahead, however, with the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 on the schedule, not to mention qualifying matches for the World Cup in the OFC, CONMEBOL, CAF and Concacaf zones.
The next ranking will be published on Aug. 5.
Click HERE to view the complete ranking.