Notes

FIFA began its end-of-year rankings in December 1992 and its regular periodic rankings in August 1993.  For the first few years, FIFA published the rankings 10 times a year.  Beginning in 1999, FIFA released a new ranking list every month, although no ranking was posted in June 2002 because the World Cup final tournament occupied the entire month.

The first ranking in December 1992 put England in fifth place as a result of a fairly successful run under manager Graham Taylor.  By the end of the following year, however, England had failed to qualify for the World Cup 1994 final tournament, were awaiting appointment of a new manager in the wake of Taylor's resignation, had dropped six places in the rankings and were no longer a top-10 team.

England sank to their lowest-ever ranking, 27th, in February 1996 under Taylor's successor, national team coach Terry Venables, as they neared the end of a 30-month period in which they played 20 consecutive friendly matches, including three in the minor Umbro Cup International Challenge Tournament in 1995.  This long break in competitive play occurred because of England's failure to qualify for the 1994 World Cup finals and, primarily, their automatic qualification as host nation for the European Championship 1996 final tournament.  The decline in the rankings came not because of England's results under Venables, but because FIFA's ranking calculations place a higher value on competitive matches than on friendly matches.  Immediately after England resumed competitive play in the European Championship 1996 final tournament, where they reached the semi-finals, their ranking leaped from 24th to 13th.

England attained their highest ranking, 4th, in December 1997 under Venables' successor, manager Glenn Hoddle, after a highly successful World Cup 1998 qualifying campaign.  For 13 ranking periods over 15 months in 1997 and 1998, Hoddle's England remained a top-10 team.  Following their round-of-16 exit from the World Cup 1998 final tournament, their ranking dropped five places, from 5th to 10th, and, after their shaky start in the European Championship 2000 qualifying campaign, to 11th in September of that year.  For the remaining few months of Hoddle's tenure, England  placed 9th, 10th or 11th, hovering on the fringes of classification as one of the world's best teams.   They remained in 11th place following the one-match stint caretaker manager Howard Wilkinson put in after Hoddle resigned under pressure, a 2-0 friendly loss at home to France in February 1999.

But over the next 18 months, under manager Kevin Keegan, England slipped well into the second tier in the world football hierarchy, dropping from a high of 10th in April 1999, to a low of 15th in July 2000, when they lost three places following their elimination in the group stage at the European Championship 2000 final tournament.  After a brief rally up to 13th in August 2000--the product of other teams' decline since England did not play in the interim--England sank to 14th in the September ranking, despite the 1-1 friendly draw away to France, to 15th in the October ranking as a result of the World Cup 2002 qualifying loss at home to Germany that led to Keegan's resignation, to 16th in November after the lacklustre goalless qualifying draw in Finland under Wilkinson, in charge for a single match as caretaker manager for the second time, and to 17th in December following the 1-0 friendly loss in Italy under another temporary manager, Peter Taylor.  They remained in that place in the first two rankings of 2001, which reflected a period in which they had no matches.

Restoration to ranking respectability began promptly on Sven-Göran Eriksson's appointment as head coach in early 2001.  England reeled off five straight victories, and by September were back in the top 10 for the remainder  of the year.  Although they hovered on the fringes of the top level in the first few months of 2002, they have retained top-10 status since their 6th place quarterfinal showing at the World Cup 2002 final tournament.  

The 6th place rankings England reached in October and November 2002, again in September and October 2003 at the close of their successful qualifying campaign for the European Championship 2004 final tournament and yet again in March 2004 were the highest achieved under Eriksson, approaching the Hoddle team's high points, the 4th and 5th place rankings of late 1997 and early 1998.  Their 7th place in December 2002 was the third highest end-of-year ranking they had achieved, behind only 1992's 5th place and 1997's  4th place.  Their 8th place in December 2003 marked the first time they had achieved an end-of-year top-10 place for three straight  years, eclipsing the two-year streak attained under Hoddle in 1997 and 1998, just before his resignation.

England finished in the top 10 in six of the 12 end-of-year rankings released since the rankings began in 1992.  They achieved that feat only three times in the rankings' first nine years.  They did it another three times in the first three years Eriksson was in charge, a remarkable improvement.  They were ranked among the top 10 teams for 22 straight months, by far their longest top-10 streak, and appeared well  on  the way to entrenching themselves once again as one of the world's top-ranked teams and becoming one of the elite top five teams.

But in the April 2004 ranking, after a 1-0 friendly match loss to Sweden in late March, they dropped four places to 10th and fell out of the top 10 to 12th in the May ranking, reflecting a period in which they did not play.  They sank to 13th in the June ranking following the 1-1 draw with Japan and the 6-1 drubbing of Iceland in the FA Summer Tournament.  But their quarterfinal penalty kicks shootout elimination at European Championship 2004 in Portugal was sufficient to push them back up to 8th in the July ranking and to 7th in the August ranking.  They remained there in the September ranking following their 3-0 home friendly victory against the Ukraine.

more to follow....

Further Information

The FIFA website contains the complete world rankings from their inception and a description of the method by which the rankings are calculated.

PY/CG