ZÜRICH, Switzerland, CMC – Jamaica women’s national team will end the year as the highest-ranked Caribbean Football Union (CFU) in the FIFA World Rankings.
The Jamaicans are ranked 40th – down three places – in the latest world rankings from the sport’s apex body, making them the fourth-highest-ranked team in the Concacaf region and one of five CFU teams inside the world’s top 100.
After finishing third in the Concacaf W Championship with a 1-0 win against Costa Rica in July, the highlight of the year for the Reggae Girlz, as they are known, was a place in the FIFA Women’s World Cup from July 20 to August 20 in Australia and New Zealand.
Sandwiched between a pair of morale-boosting draws against France and Brazil, the Jamaicans had a 1-0 win against fellow Concacaf side Panama in the group stage of the World Cup and reached the second round before bowing out when Colombia beat them 1-0.
The Reggae Girlz failed to earn qualification for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, when reigning champions Canada beat them 4-1 on aggregate in Concacaf qualification in September.
Further success eluded the side in the last quarter of the year because of a dispute with the Jamaica Football Federation when a depleted unit attended the Pan Am Games and failed to get them into the Concacaf Women’s Gold Cup.
Most of the other CFU teams were active in qualification tournaments in the confederation, which either helped or hurt their rankings.
The other four CFU teams in the FIFA Top 100 are Haiti, up one place and ranked at 51st (sixth in Concacaf); Trinidad & Tobago, down three spots at 78th (eighth in Concacaf); Guyana, down two places at 87th (10th in Concacaf); and Cuba up six spots at 89th (11th in Concacaf).
The CFU top 10 in the world is rounded by Puerto Rico unchanged at 103rd (12th in Concacaf); Dominican Republic down one spot at 107th (14th in Concacaf); Suriname unchanged at 132nd (17th in Concacaf); St Kitts & Nevis down seven spots at 138th (18th in Concacaf); and Bermuda up three spots at 143rd (19th in Concacaf).
St Lucia dropped five places to 155th in the world to sit at the foot of the Concacaf top 20 list.
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