Turkey jumps in FIFA ranking

Turkey has jumped nine spots to 40th in the latest FIFA rankings, which were announced yesterday.
The national football team failed to make it past the 2014 World Cup qualification stage for the third consecutive time, meaning it will be watching football’s biggest stage from afar next
summer, but its late surge helped its climb in the sport’s international rankings.

Turkey finished its qualification group in fourth spot behind the Netherlands, Romania and Hungary to cap a disappointing campaign. However, the team enjoyed a late surge of three wins out of four games after Fatih Terim replaced Abdullah Avc? as head coach last month.

With wins over Andorra, Romania and Estonia, Turkey jumped nine spots in two months to extract itself from its decade-worst 58th spot announced in August.

However, Turkey still risks being seeded in the third pot for the Euro 2016 qualification groups, which will be announced on Feb. 23, 2014. The latest FIFA rankings meant that Belgium and Switzerland will figure among the eight teams seeded for the World Cup draw, in contrast to 2006 champions Italy and 2010 runner-up the Netherlands.


/HurriyetDailynews/