England go fourth

12 April 2012

Steve McClaren's successful start as England manager has been confirmed by the side equalling their all-time high fourth place in the latest FIFA rankings released on Wednesday.

Successive post-World Cup victories over Greece, Andorra and Macedonia have helped McClaren's men leapfrog Italy - whose poor form since winning the World Cup sees them slip to fifth.

England were last ranked fourth under Glenn Hoddle's stewardship in December 1997.

Scotland's promising start to their Euro 2008 qualifying campaign means a jump of six places to 34th, while Northern Ireland leap 14 places to 58th after their famous win over Spain.

The heroics of Lawrie Sanchez's men mean they overtake Wales, who slip six places to 62nd. And Steve Staunton's Republic of Ireland are down five to share 43rd place with Iran.

Up two places to second place, France now stand only 40 points behind long-time leaders Brazil, with Argentina still in third. Holland, Czech Republic, Germany, Portugal and Spain make up the top 10.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in