Thats us down to 26th in the Fifa rankings now (according to bbc)

Can anyone tell me what exactly the rankings are used for? I presume its for draws for qualification for tournaments and such so right now this shouldnt affect us?

I think FIFA very much forced UEFA's hand to use them for these World Cup qualifiers. Whether that means UEFA will be under any obligation to use them for the next Euro draw though I don't know, as far as I'm aware they'd still rather use their own co-efficient.

The co-efficient is used for World Cup qualifying draw (100%), and the World Cup finals draw (where it counts for part of the rating, alongside performances in the previous 4? years qualifiers and finals).

UEFA use their own national team co-efficient for the Euros, although FIFA may yet look to force their hand in future. They did this recently, forcing UEFA to stop using co-efficient for World Cup qualifiers.

Were we not 14th before?

16th.

But we were 16th before the Macedonia game, can you really drop 10 places after just one defeat???

Anyway aren't Iceland rated higher than Macedonia, so beating them away from home should garner more than enough points to make up for those we "lost" after the Macednia game!!!

It's all pish anyway, but I was really wanting to get above England!!!

We've won 1 in our last 6 games so I suppose a fall was expected. I think we are now at a ranking level where we belong, we were not the 14-16th best team in the world.

Precisely!!

agreed, with the way that we've played the last six games have hardly merited keeping us in the top 20, plus there have been quite a few upsets in the qualifiers so far.

Macedonia are rated about 60th roughly so yes I would imagine a drop was forthcoming.

No Iceland aren't above them, they are the worst team in the group (and still largely outplayed us)

This is probably a more realistic ranking now.

Huge points gained from September games of previous years such as France (1-0 away), Lithuania (3-1 home), Lithuania (2-1 away), Faroe Islands (6-0 home), Norway (2-1 away) and the 1-1 draw with Italy have also dropped in importance.