New Zealand’s Futsal Ferns have moved to 14th place in the FIFA Futsal women’s world rankings, after climbing from 26th place.
The improvement followed games played in the OFC Futsal Women’s Nations Cup in which the Futsal Ferns qualified for next year’s inaugural FIFA Futsal Women’s World Cup.
The teams that have made the most progress within the women’s top 20 are Italy (8th, up 2), Vietnam (11th, up 2), New Zealand (14th, up 12) and Uzbekistan (18th, up 6). The strides taken by Saudi Arabia (46th, up 5) are also worthy of note.
There are five newcomers to the second edition of the FIFA Futsal women’s world ranking, namely Fiji (62nd), Tahiti (66th), Norway (68th), the Solomon Islands (73rd) and Tonga (74th).
All of these teams — with the exception of Norway — took part in the OFC qualifiers for the FIFA Women’s Futsal World Cup in 2025.
Main photo: Futsal Ferns … success at the OFC Futsal Women’s Nations Cup.
In the men’s world rankings, the Futsal Whites have been ranked #35 in the October edition, having been rated #19 in the previous rankings.
New Zealand’s drop followed the team’s results at the FIFA Futsal Men’s World Cup in Uzbekistan, where the Futsal Whites lost all their group games.
Recently crowned world champions Brazil (1st, unchanged) have held on to top spot and extended their lead over Portugal (2nd, unchanged), whose defence of their FIFA Futsal World Cup title came to a halt in the round of 16.
Three teams have made significant progress in the top ten – runners-up Argentina (3rd, up 2), quarter-finalists Kazakhstan (5th, up 3) and bronze medallists Ukraine (9th, up 3), the latter leapfrogging France (10th, unchanged) after overcoming Les Bleus in the match for third place.
The biggest movers, however, are the teams that have climbed five or more places, namely Futsal World Cup participants Venezuela (15th, up 6; quarter-finalists), the Netherlands (26th, up 10; round of 16) and Panama (38th, up 6; group stage), as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina (48th, up 6), Chile (60th, up 31), Latvia (71st, up 16), Denmark (77th, up 5) and Montenegro (86th, up 6).
This story was first published on November 17, 2024.
