At year's beginning, England remained at their lowest point in the rankings, 17th, since May, 1996, when they placed 24th.  They had dropped into the 20's in 1995 and the first half of 1996 because their failure to qualify for the World Cup 1994 finals and their automatic qualification as hosts for the European Championship 1996 finals meant that for more than two years they played nothing but friendly matches, which are not rated as highly in the FIFA ranking calculations as competitive matches.  This time their drop in the rankings was simply the product of poor results under manager Kevin Keegan.

After Sven-Göran Eriksson took over as head coach in January, England put together five successive wins in the first half of the year and rose four spots in the rankings.  On the strength of their 3-0 home friendly victory against Spain in their first match under Eriksson in February, England rose a spot to 16th in the March ranking, the first time in seven months that they had gained ground.  victories in their next two World Cup qualifiers, 2-1 at home against Finland and 3-1 away to Albania in March, boosted them to 14th for the April ranking, and, although they did not play in April, they remained 14th in the May ranking.  England's gradual rise continued in the June rankings as they climbed a spot to 13th following their 4-0 victory in the home friendly against Mexico in late May and their 2-0 World Cup qualifying win against Greece in Athens in early June.  The impressive victories in home friendlies and the narrower wins in World Cup 2002 qualifiers were still balanced in the ranking calculations against several disappointing results from 2000, thus precluding a greater improvement in the rankings.

England fell a spot in the July rankings while idle during the summer break as Latin American teams played on in World Cup preliminary competitions and the Copa América final tournament, Mexico jumping ahead to 13th and Colombia drawing even at 14th.  And the 2-0 friendly loss against Holland in August preceded a further single-rung drop to 15th in that month's rankings, as Colombia swept all the way to 6th on the strength of winning the Copa América tournament.  That left England just two spots ahead of their ranking at year's beginning, slender reward for five victories, three of them in World Cup qualifiers, balanced against a single friendly loss.  

Two World Cup qualifying victories in September--the first the remarkable 5-1 trouncing of Germany in Munich and the second the 2-0 win against Albania in Newcastle--sent England soaring to 9th, the first time they had been ranked in the top 10 since the beginning of Kevin Keegan's managerial tenure in April, 1999, when the rankings reflected the team's accomplishments under Keegan's predecessor, Glenn Hoddle.   And they retained that ranking in October after drawing with Greece, 2-2 in Manchester, taking first place in their qualifying group and thereby clinching their spot in the World Cup 2002 final tournament.  

England's last match of the year, a rather disappointing 1-1 draw in a friendly with Sweden at Old Trafford, saw them drop a rung to 10th in the November ranking as Mexico, on the strength of its 3-0 World Cup qualifying victory against Honduras at Estádio Azteca, jumped ahead of them into 9th.  And there England remained in December, just managing to finish in the top 10 of an end-of-year ranking for the fourth time.

Notes

FIFA named Honduras its "Team of the Year" with Colombia 2nd and Costa Rica 3rd.  In previous years, this award had gone to the team "topping the final ranking list of the year."  Had that method been followed, France would have won the team of the year title for 2001, breaking the lock Brazil had held on the award since 1994.  But FIFA instituted a new method of determining the team of the year in 2001.  The award "goes to the team that notches up the seven matches of the year reaping the overall highest average number of points during the year."  After every official senior level match, FIFA awards points to the teams based on several factors: the result, the relative strength of the teams, the number of goals scored and conceded, the match's home, away or neutral venue status, the importance of the match and the strength of the teams' region(s). 

Another CONCACAF team, Costa Rica, up 30 places to 30th, were named "Best Mover of the Year" ahead of Australia, up 24 rungs to 48th, and Honduras, up 21 positions to 25th.  As FIFA explained, this award "is not based simply on the biggest jump in the number of points or in the number of places up the ranking ladder.  What also has to be taken into consideration is the fact that it becomes progressively harder for a team to earn points the more it already has.  Thus to decide on the 'Best Mover of the Year' a calculation is performed that multiplies the number of points a team has at the end of the year [x] by the number it has earned during the year [y].  The team with the highest index obtained in this way wins the award."

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.

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