Iranian national football team has moved up two steps to take the 40th spot in the latest FIFA rankings released on Thursday.
Acquiring 689 points, Iran is still the best Asian team in the world, followed by Japan (614), South Korea (575), Australia (531) and the UAE (501), Varzesh3 website reported.
Iran defeated Chile 2-0 and lost to Sweden 3-1 in two friendlies held in late March.
At the top of the FIFA rankings, World Cup winner Germany remains first, with 1687 points, followed by Argentina (1490), Belgium (1457), Colombia (1412), and Brazil (1354) standing second to fifth respectively.
Special importance lies in this month ranking as the draw to place the teams in the 2018 Russia FIFA World Cup group stage, taking place Tuesday (April 14), will be based on the arrangement of teams in this list.
Keeping its first position in Asia, Iran has been put in first seeding along with 7 other powerful Asian teams, which eases their path for qualifying since they won’t face any of the arc rivals in the first stage.
