“More games against better opposition” is one of the main factors contributing to the rise of the Emerald Boys in the FIFA rankings, says football blogger.
“The big jump was in 2019 when they finished second in the National League Group,” shared Craig Brewin, who has been following the team. Brewin blogs about the team at Living in Montserrat.
According to the official FIFA blog in its 2024 rankings, Montserrat climbed by one to 175. In 2019, team was ranked at 199.
- 2019 – 199
- 2020 – 183
- 2021 – 180
- 2022 – 177
- 2023 – 176
- 2024 – 175
“The big difference has been the creation of the CONCACAF Nations League and a change in the ranking formula. Competitive games against better teams score more highly, and Montserrat started the tournament by winning five games out of ten over the first two seasons. That’s when the big jump up in the rankings occurred, and retaining League B status has helped maintain it. The ranking has crept up again after the recent wins. All the CONCACAF teams are improving, though, and the challenge now is to get ahead of other Caribbean and Central American nations to get into a higher seeding pot. A successful FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign will help with that because those games carry more ranking points. Coach Lee Bowyer knows that which is why he is taking the tournament very seriously. Beating Panama, who are ranked third in CONCACAF, will be worth a lot of points,” Blogger, Craig Brewin told Discover Montserrat.
The FIFA blog explained that “After a long period testing and analysing the best way to calculate the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, a new model took effect in August 2018 after approval by the FIFA Council. This new version developed by FIFA was named “SUM” as it relies on adding/subtracting points won or lost for a game to/from the previous point totals rather than averaging game points over a given time period as in the previous version of the World Ranking. The points which are added or subtracted are partially determined by the relative strength of the two opponents, including the logical expectation that teams higher in the ranking should fare better against teams lower in the ranking.”
Other Concacaf teams which climbed in the FIFA rankings are:
- Barbados by 1 point to 177
- Cayman Islands by 1point to 196
- Bahamas by 2 points to 200
- Bermuda by 1 point to 170
- St. Lucia by 2 points to 165
- Guyana by 3 points to 154
- Jamaica by 2 points to 55
- Trinidad & Tobago dropped to 98 losing 2 points
