Iran’s national soccer team has maintained its top place in the Asian FIFA Ranking while climbing two steps up to reach 42nd in the world.
According to the latest FIFA ranking published on Thursday, April 7, for the month of March, Iran stands atop Asia with 672 points followed by Australia with 601, South Korea 579 and Japan with 577 points.
Recent victories over India and Oman for the 2018 Russia World Cup second qualification round were enough to see Carlos Queiroz’s men keep their position in Asia and improve in the world list, Varzesh3.com reported.
According to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), draws for the third qualification round will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on April 12, where the qualified 12 teams, separated into six pots each including two teams, will be drawn to form two groups of six nations.
The six teams in each group will play each other on a home and away basis with top two sides from each group booking their place at the 2018 World Cup finals.
Although Team Melli, led by the well-known Portuguese coach Queiroz, will not put in the same group with Australia in the next round - both are placed at the two top seeds - they do not seem to have an easy path ahead.
They may be drawn alongside one of either South Korea (56th in the world) or Japan (57), Saudi Arabia (60) or Uzbekistan (66), the UAE (68) or China (81), Qatar (83) or Iraq (105), and Syria (110) or Thailand (119).
The third round of qualification games begin on September 1.
In FIFA world ranking list, Argentina stands 1st, while Belgium, Chile, Colombia and Germany are ranked 2nd to 5th respectively.
