Spain reach the top of the FIFA/Coca-Cola Women's World Ranking for the first time, with USA up to second and Haiti, Cambodia and Cabo Verde at all-time highs.
Four months have passed since the last FIFA/Coca-Cola Women’s World Ranking was published in August, during which time over 400 international matches have taken place. Never before have so many fixtures been fulfilled in an equivalent period.
Qualifiers for the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament Paris 2024 and UEFA Women’s Nations League games were on the agenda for European teams. Nations in the AFC, CAF and Concacaf zones, meanwhile, were involved in qualifying matches for their respective continental tournaments, with OFC representatives – with the exception of Aotearoa New Zealand – competing at the Pacific Games.
This plethora of events inevitably had an impact on December’s FIFA/Coca-Cola Women’s World Ranking, the last of 2023.
Consequently, reigning world champions Spain (1st) claimed top spot for the first time. They are the fourth team in football history to reach the coveted position, after USA (2nd, up 1), Germany and Sweden. France (3rd, up 2) make up the podium.
England (4th, unchanged) remain just below those three high-flyers, ahead of previous leaders Sweden (5th, down 4). Germany (6th), the Netherlands (7th), Japan (8th), Korea DPR (9th) and Canada (10th) complete the top ten, which no longer features Brazil (11th, down 2).
Australia (12th down 1) pay the price for their defeats to the Olympic Champions in December, despite a dominant display in the AFC Women's Olympic Qualifying campaign in Perth.
The next FIFA/Coca-Cola Women’s World Ranking will be published in March 2024.
