https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/7059726.stm

Scotland are on the verge of overtaking England after rising to their highest position in the Fifa world rankings.
Despite their 2-0 loss in Georgia, the Scots have moved from 14th to 13th - two places behind England, who fell to 11th from ninth after losing to Russia.

The top nine teams will be seeded for the 2010 World Cup qualifying rounds.

Argentina head the rankings, Brazil are second, Italy third, the managerless Republic of Ireland are 32nd, Northern Ireland 36th and Wales 58th.

If Scotland maintain their current position, they will qualify for the second group of seeds, a significant improvement from their Euro 2008 campaign, where they were among the fourth-ranked teams.

And their position could improve further if the Scots beat world champions Italy in their final Euro 2008 qualifier on 17 November, a match they must win to reach the finals next year.

 606: DEBATE
Give your thoughts on Scotland's advance in the world rankings 

It is a tough assignment for Alex McLeish's side against the World Cup holders, but they have reason for hope after taking maximum points from their previous home qualifying games against the Faroes, France, Georgia, Lithuania and the Ukraine.

England's hopes of finishing in the top nine have been severely dented following their defeat in Moscow.

The battle for qualification from Group E is now out of England's hands.

Croatia need only one point from their remaining two games to qualify. Russia will qualify if they win their remaining two games, while England, who play Croatia at Wembley in their last game, need Russia to slip up.

Meanwhile, the Republic's failure to qualify for the tournament in Austria and Switzerland led to the Football Association of Ireland terminating the contract of manager Steve Staunton by mutual consent.


AND PEOPLE SAY THE SCOTS ARE USELESS AND ENGLAND ARE MUCH BETTER..

The Scots deserve the rise, and we deserve the fall.

Can't say anything but that.

Apart from deciding the seedings for the world cup.

I think 14th is a bit of an exaggeration at this moment in time but it probably comes from the fact that we won six games in a row before the defeat to Georgia.  That's our best run of results since 1946 so it was always going to push us up the rankings.  If we beat Italy and qualify for Euro 2008 (big if) then I think we'll deserve our top 20 status.

I'm not fussed about overtaking England tbh.  For me, following the national team isn't about England, it's about Scotland.  Unfortunately there will be a fair few of my countrymen who will go bananas and start singing about things that happened 800 years ago if we overtake you lads.  Small nation mentality, you'll just have to excuse/ignore them.

Well they play as a team. England would have been absolutely f***** if they'd been in their group too.

Really? I don't think you've mentioned that before.

To a certain extent. The likes of packing your own half with men, getting battered all match and then nicking a win in France with a hopeful pot shot is not something they can sustain. They'll become undone shortly, as usual, if the Geordia game isn't that already.

At least we know and admit we're playing crap, from what I'm hearing you would think they were serious world cup contenders.

I can understand their enjoying it at the moment like. This is as good as it gets for them to be fair. I actually fancy us to just scrape through and them to miss out though.

The fact is they play as a team and manage to grind out wins through their commitment to the cause rather than technical ability. They really are, in footballing terms, a poor side, and if they do qualify, will find it hard to sustain 90minutes of 11 men behind a ball during a major competition. They have hampden park too which is really quite an intimidating atmosphere for any team to go to, and certainly helps them when it comes to putting pressure on the referee to overlook the obvious over-physical/niggly nature of their game which will not be tolerated during the euros. If the scots seriously think they are a good footballing side, they are deluded, and moreover, they would make sure everyone knew about it if they overtook us in the rankings, regardless of the fact that england fans a) generally couldn't give a f*** about fifa rankings, and b) judge the success of their team in terms of winning competitions (even though we NEVER do.) rather than say, rising in the rankings above germany, france or argentina. It would also be nice to see a scot admitting to this rather than coming up with a 'look how rubbish england are' reply when talking about their national team. Anyway, here's hoping Italy beat them and we can all breathe a sigh of relief when we inevitably fail to qualify too!

The ratings are wonderfully worked out,  and are amazingly accurate.

They look at the last 4 years worth of results, to avoid the nonsense that a single win in Paris may make to a team's ranking. Games played  in the last year count 100% to your points total, sliding down the scale to only being worth 20% of their face value if they are 4 years old.

You get more points for winning a competitive game than a friendly, you get more points for results gained against a more highly rated side than a lowere one. (So beating France is better than beating the Faroe Isles).

So Scotland beating France would get them 3 points for the win, a 3 times multiplier for it being a Euro qualifier, a 1.94 multiplier as France were ranked 6th in the world, so roughly 17.5 points. When Scotland beat tghe Faroes Isles they got 3 points, a 3 times mulitipled for Euro, but a 0.07 multiplier as the Faroe Isles were ranked 193 in the World. So 0.6 points.

You don't get up the top of the list unless you get results against sides above you. Scotland have twice fluked wins over France, and have beaten Ukraine has made all the difference to their results. England beating 37th ranked Israel, and 130th ranked Estonia has no great benefit.

Last time England beat a team above them was the Argentina friendly, in a competitive game it was Argentina in the 2002 World Cup.