NYON, Switzerland, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- Egypt returned to the Top 10 of the FIFA men's world soccer rankings, which still has Spain and Netherlands in the top spots.
Egypt, 1-1-1 in recent matches, benefited from Russia seeing its rankings point total drop because of devaluation of older results. The Russians, who jumped from 25th to 10th in the October rankings, saw a net loss of 58 points this month and dropped from 10th to 13th.
That pushed three teams up with Norway going to 12th, Greece to 11th and Egypt up one spot to 10th.
The top nine teams remained the same as the October rankings but some tightening in point totals could lead to changes when the FIFA rankings are updated Dec. 15.
Spain tops the rankings with 1,920 points while Netherlands is No. 2 with 1,718. No. 3 Brazil (1,493 points) is just ahead of Germany (1,489) and Argentina (1,353) is fifth.
England (1,250) comes in sixth with Uruguay (1,174) in seventh. Portugal (1,102) is being challenged for the eighth spot by Croatia (1,098). Egypt has 1,047 ratings points and Greece totals 1,043.
The FIFA world rankings are determined by points awarded from match results over a three-year period, with more recent games given greater weight. Teams get additional points for playing relatively strong opponents.
