Zimbabwe Mighty Warriors has ascended by six places to 88th out of the 177 women footballing nations in the world.

Zimbabwe now has 1217 points at 88th in the world and number 12 in Africa, an improvement from 94th in the last ranking.

Newly crowned African women champions, Nigeria moved 2 places up and are now ranked 35th to take the number one African country.

Nigeria is followed by Ghana (45th), Cameroon (47th), Equatorial Guinea (50th) and South Africa (51st).

The USA continue to lead the way, winning all six of their games since the last ranking was published, scoring an astonishing 39 goals in those half-dozen matches – with Christen Press bagging nine – as their year concluded with a flurry of impressive victories.

While two countries, Andorra and Rwanda, make their maiden appearance in the ranking, no fewer than nine have dropped out due to prolonged inactivity, meaning 15 countries have attained their best-ever positions in this latest edition.

The next FIFA/Coca-Cola Women’s World Ranking will be published on Friday, 24 March 2017.

Leader: USA
Moves into top ten: None
Moves out of top ten: None
Matches played in total: 121
Most matches played: Kenya (10)
Biggest move by ranks: Kenya (122nd), up 10
Biggest drop by ranks: Iceland (20th), Republic of Ireland (34th) down 4
Newly ranked teams: Rwanda, Andorra
Teams no longer ranked due to prolonged inactivity: Ecuador, Iran, Indonesia, Laos, Palestine, Kyrgyzstan, Gabon, Lebanon, Swaziland