France up to No. 1 in FIFA world rankings; Germany down 14 places and Nigeria 49th

World Cup winners, France, have been ranked as the best team in the new FIFA World ranking returning to the spot for the first time since 2002 and sending Germany to 15th position while, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia and Uruguayin are ranked second, third, fourth and fifth respectively.

France are top of the rankings after winning their second World Cup, returning to the spot for the first time since 2002 while runners-up, Croatia are fourth, jumping up from No. 20.

Germany's exit in the group stage of the World Cup has seen them plummet to 15th in FIFA's world rankings -- their lowest position in more than a decade.

The defending World Cup champions entered the competition No. 1 in the rankings, but they failed to reach the knockout rounds and made their earliest exit from the tournament in 80 years. 

Uruguay moved to 5th place from No. 9 sending Argentina to 11th place while England takes 6th place moving up six places, Portugal 7th, Switzerland 8th position, while Spain and Denmark are sitting in the 9th position.

Following their group stage exit at the World Cup in Russia, the Super Eagles of Nigeria dropped one place from 48th position to 49th and moved to 5th place from the 6th position behind Senegal, Congo DR, Ghana, Morocco and Cameroon in Africa.

ehind Senegal, Congo DR, Ghana, Morocco and Cameroon.

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Hosts Russia improved from No. 70 to No. 49 after reaching the quarterfinals and Egypt, who lost all three group-stage games, dropped from No. 45 to No. 65.

The United States, who did not qualify for the World Cup, moved up three places to No. 22, while Italy, who also did not participate in the competition, fell to No. 22 -- their worst position since the rankings started in 1993.

The rankings were the first to be issued since France beat Croatia 4-2 in the World Cup final on July 15 and also the first since FIFA replaced its previous formula.

The new formula, approved by the FIFA Council before the World Cup, relied on adding or subtracting points depending on the results of matches rather than averaging points over a given period of time.

FIFA said the removal of an annual average point calculation, which was part of the previous formula, would have a number of benefits, including reducing the ability of teams to influence their ranking by avoiding friendlies.