Vietnam has officially surpassed the Philippines to become the no. 1 football team in Southeast Asia as the International Football Federation (FIFA) announced its year-end men’s world rankings on December 21.

Vietnam concludes 2017 at the 112th position in the FIFA men's world rankings

Vietnam only had one game in the past month, which was the clash against Afghanistan in the third round of the 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers. The goalless draw helped Park Hang-seo’s side to book their ticket to the largest continental football event.

In addition, the result added 33 points to Vietnam’s FIFA rating, enabling them to jump an amazing 13 places to no. 112 in the world with 298 points.

This is the highest FIFA ranking that Vietnam has obtained thus far since 2012, which helps the team to move closer to their goal of breaking into the world’s top 100.

The Philippines dropped six places to 124th in the world and second in the Southeast Asian region with 263 points, followed by world no. 130 Thailand and world no. 140 Myanmar, who made respective jumps of two and ten spots.

Germany finishes 2017 as world no. 1 with 1,602 points. The remainder of the world’s top ten teams includes Brazil (1,483) points, Portugal (1,358), Argentina (1,348), Belgium (1,325), Spain (1,231), Poland (1,209), Switzerland (1,190), France (1,183) and Chile (1,162).

Iran (world no. 32), Australia (world no. 38), Japan (world no. 57) and the Republic of Korea (world no. 60) were the four leading teams in Asia this month. These are also the representatives of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) at the 2018 World Cup.

Nhan Dan