Vietnamese women top Southeast Asia in FIFA ranking

By Xuan Binh July 12, 2019 | 11:07 pm PT

Vietnamese women celebrate their victory over Thailand at Asian Games in August 2018. Photo by The Thao & Van Hoa.

Vietnam’s women national football team have retained their 35th position in the latest FIFA rankings, topping Southeast Asia after Thailand slipped.

The women received 21 plus points in FIFA's July ranking after a successful run at the second round of the 2020 AFC Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament in April, in which they won all of their matches against Hong Kong, Jordan and Uzbekistan.

With this, they now have 1,659 points to retake the sixth place in Asia and first place in Southeast Asia from Thailand. They remain in the 35th place in the world, a position they have held since last December.

The Thai team, which previously were Southeast Asia's top team and the world's 34th, lost 42 points after losing all five of their recent matches against Belgium, Chile, France, Sweden and the U.S., and dropped to the 39th position in the world in July's FIFA ranking with 1,616 points.

Behind Vietnam and Thailand in Southeast Asia are Myanmar with 1,521 points (46th in the world), followed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

After winning the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, the U.S. further cemented their place at the top of the world with 2,180 points, followed by Germany with 2,059 points and the Netherlands, the World Cup runners up, with 2,037 points.

In Asia, Australia top the ranking table with 1,965 points (8th in the world), followed by North Korea, Japan, China and South Korea.