Emma Hayes Leads USWNT Back To The Top Of FIFA Women’s World Rankings

Less than three months into her new job, Emma Hayes has led the new Olympic Women’s Football champions back to the top of the FIFA Women’s World Rankings announced today.

Only 63 days ago, the United States Women’s National Team had plummeted to their worst-ever world ranking of fifth, below world champions Spain, France, England and Germany.

However since she has taken charge of the four-time world champions, Hayes has been unbeaten in ten matches, including six outright wins in the Olympic Games. Those competitive victories, and in particular the two wins in France over the higher-ranked Germans, have earned them over 70 points to catapult the United States back to the top of the world rankings.

The FIFA Women’s World Rankings were introduced in June 2003 and over the next 20 years would be dominated by the two leading powers in the game, the United States and Germany. Prior to the 2023 Women’s World Cup, those two had been the only two nations to lead the rankings.

The United States had been the number one ranked team in the world for a staggering 5,715 days compared to the 1,701 days the position was occupied by Germany, world champions in 2003 and 2007. Going into last summer’s World Cup, the United States had been the number one ranked team in the world for over six successive years, a unbroken run of 75 months.

After their worst-ever performance at a Women’s World Cup last summer, the United States lost top spot to the team that eliminated them at the tournament, Sweden. The Scandinavians held the position for 112 days before being replaced by the new world champions Spain, who claimed the top spot for the first time in December 2023.

Spain were widely considered to be favorites to win Gold at the Paris Olympics and in the process become the first reigning world champions to win a Gold medal in 88 years. However, after a strong start at the Games, the effects of a draining European season caught up with them.

A quarter-final draw with Colombia (a match won in a penalty shoot-out) followed by two successive defeats in the semi-final (to Brazil) and Bronze Medal Match (to Germany) have lost them 79 ranking points. They therefore fell two places below England, who didn’t play at the Olympics and remained on virtually the same points total.

Elsewhere in the rankings, Olympic hosts France, who went into the Olympics as the second-ranked team in the world, has felt the effects of a poor performance at their own Games. An eight quarter-final defeat at a major tournament in the past fifteen years has cost them 91 ranking points causing them to plummet to 10th, their joint worst position which they last occupied in 2009.

Above them in ninth are North Korea. The Asian nation did not play a single international match between 2020 and 2023 due to the self-imposed isolation of the country throughout the Covid-pandemic. This year they have played in only four games, the last two of those against a Russia side still banned from FIFA competitions due to sanctions imposed as a result of their ongoing war in Ukraine.

At the other end of the table, European nation Leichtenstein are ranked for the first time after their women’s team twice played against Namibia. They enter the rankings at 187th position meaning that a new record of 194 different nations feature on the list.