Argentina has moved to the No 1 spot in FIFA’s men’s world rankings just ahead of the World Cup starting, with France dropping two places to third.England, Portugal and Brazil occupy fourth, fifth and sixth positions respectively, while Morocco, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany make up the top 10.Mauricio Pochettino’s USMNT have dropped one place to 17th after a 3-2 win over Senegal and 2-1 loss to Germany, with Mexico’s wins over Ghana, Australia and Serbia have seen the World Cup co-hosts rise to 14th. Canada, meanwhile, remains 30th.Italy, 12th are the highest-ranked nation not featuring at the World Cup while New Zealand, 85th, are the lowest-ranked of the participating sides.Defending world champions Argentina prepared for the tournament with friendly victories over Honduras and Iceland. Meanwhile, France’s warm-up games included a defeat by Ivory Coast while the tournament preparations for European champions Spain, who remain second in the rankings, involved a 1-1 draw against Iraq.Those results ensure Lionel Scaloni’s side, who topped the South American qualification section, move back to the top of the rankings for the first time since July 2025.Russia, who have been banned from playing in FIFA and UEFA competitions since the nation’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, are ranked 35th. The nation has exclusively played in friendly matches, which count towards FIFA’s rankings system, in the four years since.FIFA world rankings are determined by the Elo model, developed by physics professor Arpad Elo, it assigns a numerical score to each competitor that goes up with a win and down with a loss. FIFA says it adds and subtracts points for matches measuring relative team strength, match importance, match result and expected match result.Teams for the expanded 48-team tournament were put into four pots of 12 based on their rankings, with the nine best-ranked teams in Pot One with the three host nations, and so on. The World Cup play-off qualifiers were put into Pot Four with the lowest-ranked teams. A nation from each pot was drawn to form a group of four.Jun 11, 2026Connections: Sports EditionSpot the pattern. Connect the termsFind the hidden link between sports terms