New Zealand’s All Whites have improved their placing in the FIFA men’s world rankings despite not playing any international fixtures since the last review.
The results by teams around New Zealand on the rankings list have seen the All Whites move up one place to 103rd in the February 2024 rankings.
New Zealand get the opportunity to climb the rankings in March when they play Egypt (now #36, down three places) and either Tunisia (#41, down 13) or Croatia (#10, no change) at the W Cup tournament in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
READ MORE: All Whites draw Mo Salah’s Egypt in opening game at W Cup in March >>>>
The All Whites were ranked 104th when Darren Bazeley was appointed head coach in March 2023.
New Zealand’s position was 122nd when Danny Hay took over as head coach in late 2019.
The highest position achieved by New Zealand has been 47th (in August 2002); the lowest has been 161st (April-May 2016).
The last six years
How the rankings are calculated
Points are allocated to teams from their most recent games and are weighted using the following criteria:
- Result of the match.
- Home vs away, or neutral ground.
- Importance of the match.
- Difference in ranking between the teams.
Beating a highly-rated team, away, and in a tournament, rather than a friendly, can boost a team’s momentum up the rankings.
A win over a lowly-rated team can have little impact.
Winning or losing, of course, is the most important criteria, but goal difference and goals scored are also taken into account, as is shown in the following table.
READ MORE: The methodology used to rank teams >>>>>
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