Black Stars shining and rising

There might be a dramatic change at the top of the FIFA/Coca-Cola ranking and Ghana has also benefited from the changes with three places up to the 19th position as FIFA releases the March edition of the ranking schedule.

The latest position is Ghana's all-time best record within the past decade.

With an additional 33 points bagged this month, Ghana, four-time African Champions now has 881 points on the ranking table.

A good start to 2007 which saw Ghana thrashing Nigeria 4-1 in her first international game of the year and the devaluation of the past results has contributed to the alterations in the March edition of the rankings.

The month's release has only three African nations making the top 20 with Cameroon, Ghana and Ivory Coast all making it amongst the world's top sides.

On the African continent, Ghana is now second best with Cameroon in pole position and the Ivory Coast dropping to the third.

Mali are fourth on the table. Nigeria who started the year as Africa's top side have dropped to the fifth position.

March's ranking took into account only 17 “A” international matches that were played in the last four weeks, which means that so far this year 119 games have been taken into account for the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.

In addition to nine qualifying matches (for the CONCACAF Gold Cup), this month's ranking includes eight friendly matches.

Nevertheless, Argentina have made their way to the number one spot from the third position dethroning Italy after just a month at the top.

Italy are now second with Brazil dropping to the third position.