Iceland climbs FIFA ranking

The Icelandic national men’s football team has climbed one place in the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. Iceland is now 37^th in the world.

Despite being by far the smallest of the Nordic countries with a population of just 340,000, Iceland outperforms all but one of them on the FIFA list. Sweden, Norway and Finland – with populations ranging between five and ten million – take 39^th, 70^th and 78^th positions, respectively.

Only Denmark has the better of Iceland, being classified by FIFA in its latest update of 4 June as the 29^th best team in the world.

FIFA’s current Top 10 is as follows: 1. Germany, 2. Belgi­um, 3. Arg­entina, 4.Col­ombia, 5. Braz­il, 6. Netherlands, 7. Portugal, 8. Uruguay, 9. France and 10. Spain.

Iceland’s next international opponent in the UEFA Euro 2016 qualifiers is the Czech Republic, currently placed 21 places above Iceland, in 16^th place.