On April 7, Beijing time, the international soccer authority unveiled the soccer ranking list of national teams of various countries until April 2021. In our soccer field, the national team's overall ranking saw a slight drop, slipping to 77th from 75th last time, but the points remained solid at 1,322.96, and the ranking in Asia also remained unchanged at ninth place. Meanwhile, Japan consolidated its dominance in Asia, while Belgium maintained its lead in the overall standings.
The release of the rankings is FIFA's second men's national team rankings update for 2021, and since the last release on Feb. 18, global soccer has hosted 185 tournaments of all types in the 40-odd days, including World Qualifiers and warm-up matches. However, our national team has not participated in any international A-level tournaments, instead continuing to warm up with Chinese Super League teams. Under the leadership of Li Tie, the national soccer team won eight consecutive warm-up matches, defeating Henan Songshan Longmen and Shandong Taishan with scores of 2-0 and 3-0 respectively.
Despite the fact that these warm-up matches were not recognized by FIFA as A-level matches, our men's football team's points score remained unchanged at 1,322.96 since the beginning of last year. Nonetheless, due to the fact that some teams behind the national soccer team, such as Cape Verde Islands and Netherlands Curacao, have overtaken several teams, including the national soccer team, our overall ranking has dropped slightly and we are currently in 77th place.
Within Asia, the national soccer team's ranking remains unchanged at ninth, behind Japan, Iran, South Korea, Australia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. Although Syria is ranked 10th in Asia, it has outperformed the national soccer team in Group A of the Asian Qualifying Round 40 of the World Cup. Syria won all five of its matches in the 40-team tournament to lead the group, while the national soccer team finished with two wins, one draw and one loss, sharing seven points with the Philippines, which played only five matches.
In the overall global standings, Belgium continues to lead the way with 1,783.38 points, having held the top spot since September 2018. Teams France, Brazil, England, Portugal and Spain also hold steady in second through sixth place. Italy added 17 points to move up three places and overtake Argentina in the latest rankings to seventh. Guinea-Bissau moved up 11 places to 108th, making them the fastest-rising team in the rankings this time around, while Mozambique slipped nine places to 115th, making them the team with the most significant drop in the rankings. FIFA's next release of the rankings is scheduled for May 27th.
