Howard Walker, Staff Reporter
FOLLOWING A disastrous two-match tour of England, Jamaica have plummeted 32 places to 78th after the newly-formatted FIFA rankings were released yesterday.
Brazil lead the rankings from newly-crowned world champions Italy.
This is the lowest Reggae Boyz ranking since 1994 when Jamaica were ranked 96th in the world before embarking on a tremen-dous run which saw Rene Simoes-led Jamaica win the FIFA's Best Mover of the Year Award.
Jamaica reached an all-time best of 29th in August 1998 - just after the World Cup in France. Jamaica, following embarrassing 4-1 and 6-0 losses to Ghana and England, respectively, have been replaced as the top-ranked team in the Caribbean by World Cup participants Trinidad and Tobago.
FAST FALL
Jamaica started the year 42nd, but within six months they have dropped 36 positions to 78th.
Trinidad and Tobago dropped 17 positions following three fighting World Cup performances and are 64th - 14 places above Jamaica.
The Reggae Boyz have also dropped to number nine in CONCACAF behind the United States who slumped to 16, dropping 11 spots, but they remain ahead of Mexico in 18th position.
Just before the conclusion of the World Cup, FIFA announced it would change the controversial format to something that would truly reflect teams' abilities.
A new method has been used to calculate this eagerly-awaited first World Ranking since the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which not only introduces major changes in points allocation and the assessment of the opposition strength, but also makes such factors as the importance of the match and regional strength easier to understand.
This new formula and the big points hauls gained from World Cup matches has led to a complete shake up in the ranking. Besides the effect of the World Cup matches, the change in the evaluation period has also led to a major shift. Now only the last four years (48 months) count, with each year weighted differently.
