Mhofu's Warriors slump on FIFA Rankings

Zimbabwe dropped three places on the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) world and continental rankings released today.

The country's senior football team, Warriors is now ranked 112 in the world and 27th in Africa.

The slump follows after a disastrous Afcon campaign that saw the team finishing their campaign in the first round on the bottom of Group A.

Newly crowned African champions Algeria were the biggest climbers in the latest Fifa rankings published on Thursday.

The Desert Foxes, who beat Senegal to lift the Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt last week, moved up 28 places on July's list to go to 40th in the world and fourth in Africa.

Senegal retained top spot on the continent, moving up two places to reach 20th in the world - their best ever ranking.

Nigeria, who won bronze in Egypt, went up 12 places to 33 on the global list and third in Africa.

Tunisia, the other semi-finalists at the Nations Cup, were second in Africa, behind Senegal, but moved down four places to 29th in the world.

Surprise quarter-finalists Madagascar were rewarded for their impressive run in Egypt, moving up 12 places to 96th overall.

Benin - who knocked out Morocco in the last-16 - went up six places to 82nd in the world with Morocco also going up six places to 41st in the world and fifth in Africa.

Nations Cup hosts Egypt went up nine spots to make the top 50, moving up to 49th overall.

Ghana are just below the Pharaohs in 7th on the African list having maintained their position of 50th in the world.

Belgium remained top of the global standings followed by Brazil, France and England.

Africa's Top 10 on July's Fifa rankings (global position and movement in brackets):

Senegal (20, +2)
Tunisia (29, -4)
Nigeria (33, +12)
Algeria (40, +28)
Morocco (41, +6)
Egypt (49, +9)
Ghana (50, 0)
Cameroon (53, -2)
DR Congo (56, -7)
Ivory Coast (57, +5)

Zimbabwe (112, -3)

Zimbabwe will now start their 2022 Fifa World Cup qualifiers in the preliminary round following the release of the latest FIFA Rankings on Thursday.

The Warriors missed the spot to get a bye after dropping to number 27 in Africa.

According to the format of the qualifiers, the 26 highest ranked teams at the time of the draw will be exempted from the preliminary round. The 28 bottom-placed sides will be paired and the winners in the encounters will join the top-ranked teams in the group stages.

The draw for the World Cup qualifiers is expected to be done next at the CAF Headquarters in Egypt.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe is making a return after missing the 2018 edition due to a ban which came as a result of failure to pay former coach Valinhos his outstanding salaries.

The qualifying format will go through three phases as follows:

First round: 28 teams (ranked 27–54) will play home-and-away over two legs. The 14 winners will advance to the second round.

Second round: 40 teams (teams ranked 1–26 and 14 first-round winners) will be divided into 10 groups of four teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The 10 group winners will advance to the third round.

Third round: The 10 teams, which will have advanced from the second round, will play home-and-away over two legs. The five winners will qualify for the World Cup.