Even if they have managed to avoid a defeat in the recent matches, the Philippine Azkals fell from 124th in the world to 127th in the April update of the FIFA World Rankings posted on Thursday morning.
The Azkals couldn’t do much about the decline as they had gone against teams that were below them in the rankings. A draw against Malaysia — a team previously placed 37 spots below the Azkals — prevented Thomas Dooley’s lads from gaining traction and more points to register for the index.The other game last month was a comprehensive victory for the Azkals in the 2019 Asian Cup Qualifiers, albeit against a lowly Nepal team that stayed 170th in the world.
Aside from a satisfying yet far from perfect outing for the Philippines, the resurgence of other teams such as India, Yemen, and Palestine has prompted them to leapfrog the Azkals in the standings.
Often branded a poor indicator of a national team’s true strengths, the FIFA World Rankings use a complex formula to calculate each team’s progress in the past four-year window. Looking at the Philippines’ context, football has been developing at a steady pace as the country has been consistently in the 101-150 bracket recently.
One of the country’s goals is to break the triple-digit barrier to make it to the top 100 teams of the world. With no fixtures coming up until June, the Azkals have plenty of time to gear up for the challenge as they look to rewrite Philippine football history again.
