"It's not even the World Cup, but I'm worried about the group of death."China frustrates with lowest FIFA rankings in a decade
"It's not even the World Cup, but I'm worried about the group of death."China frustrates with lowest FIFA rankings in a decade
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China's FIFA ranking, which is on the verge of elimination from the Asian qualifiers for the North Korea-China World Cup, has fallen further.
FIFA announced the FIFA rankings for April 2025. While Argentina has raced to the top of the FIFA rankings, Korea ranked 23rd without any change from the previous announcement. Among the countries belonging to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Korea was ranked the third after Japan (15th) and Iran (18th). China, which is at the bottom of the third qualifying group C for the 2026 North-China World Cup in Asia, fell four notches to 94th.
Chinese media Sohu said on the 4th, "China's FIFA ranking has fallen due to its poor performance in the World Cup qualifiers. China has recorded its worst FIFA ranking since March 2016. It ranked 14th in Asia. China lost its third World Cup qualifying match against Australia last month, making it impossible to get a ticket to the North-China-US World Cup finals, and the FIFA ranking also fell."
The media said, "Based on the current FIFA rankings, China will be allocated to Port 3 in the 2027 Asian Cup finals draw and will be drawn." Along with Saudi Arabia, the host country of the tournament, the top five countries with a high FIFA ranking will be allocated the top seed in the draw, and the 7th to 12th teams will be assigned to Port 2. If China fails to rank within the top 12 in Asia, it is more likely to be included in Port 3 and in the group of death in the Asian Cup final draw. Of the six teams that ranked third in each group in the Asian Cup finals, four teams with good performance will advance to the round of 16 tournaments, but in this case, they will face the top team in another group, making it much more difficult to advance to the quarterfinals. It means that if China is sluggish in the Asian Cup, it will continue to affect FIFA rankings and put them at a disadvantage in the 2030 World Cup regional qualifiers.
Sohu said, "China's highest FIFA ranking ever was 37th, which was achieved in December 1998. The lowest ranking ever was 109th, which was recorded in March 2013."
China is at the bottom of the group with two wins and six losses (six points) in Group C of the third Asian qualifying round for the 2026 North-China World Cup. In the third Asian qualifying round for the North-China World Cup, the second-ranked team in each group will win a ticket to directly advance to the World Cup finals. China will play 9th and 10th Group C matches in the third Asian qualifying round for the 2026 North-China World Cup against Indonesia and Japan in June. China will not be able to win a ticket to the World Cup finals, which will be given to the second place in the group, even if it wins all the remaining two games of the third qualifying round for the North-China World Cup. 메이저놀이터
China is aiming to win a ticket to the finals of the World Cup by advancing to the fourth preliminary round in Asia for the North-China World Cup, which is given to the fourth-ranked team in the group. China is three points behind Indonesia, which is ranked fourth in the group, with nine points. Indonesia is lagging behind China while recording 123rd in the FIFA rankings.