FIFA World Ranking : FIFA Women's World Rankings

The FIFA Women's World Rankings for football (soccer) were introduced in July 2003 as a follow-on to the existing FIFA World Rankings for men. FIFA Women's World Rankings attempt to compare the strength of internationally active teams at any given time, as does the men's rankings.

There are several important distinctions in the FIFA Women's World Rankings formula:

FIFA Women's World Rankings are only published four times a year—in March, June, September and December&mdash (men's rankings are published monthly).
FIFA Women's World Rankings are based on every international match a team ever played, going back to 1971, the first FIFA-recognized women's international between France and the Netherlands. (men's considers only matches in the last eight years).
FIFA Women's World Rankings is not weighted to emphasize recent results (men's results are weighted on a sliding scale, emphasizing recent results).
This results in a FIFA Women's World Rankings system which is far more similar to the Elo football rating system, considered a superior formula. Elo ratings converge on a team's true strength, relative to its competitors after about 30 matches. Elo ratings for teams with fewer than 30 matches should be considered provisional.

Top 20 Ranking as of March 2006
Rank Team Points
1 Germany 2219
2 USA 2189
3 Norway 2065
4 Brazil 2053
5 France 2017
6 Sweden 2005
7 North Korea 1999
8 China 1974
9 Denmark 1973
10 Italy 1943
11 Japan 1911
12 Canada 1909
13 England 1908
14 Russia 1887
15 Australia 1866
16 Finland 1841
17 Netherlands 1822
18 Ukraine 1805
18 Iceland 1803
20 Spain 1778

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