Warriors slide out of top 100

ended last year placed 98th on the globe and 24th in Africa.
Between the last rankings and now, Zimbabwe have only played one match in which they drew 0-0 against the Zebras of Botswana in an international friendly in Gaborone two weeks ago.
Interestingly, Botswana have gained one place moving to 21st in Africa and 94th in the world.
And now Norman Mapeza’s men have continued their downward movement after going one place down to 25th on the Caf rankings with 341 points.
It means that Mapeza and his men will have to pull up their socks if he still fancies his dreams of seeing t he Warriors ranked among the top 50 teams in the world.
In August last year, Zimbabwe had made steady progress when the team was ranked 74th in the world and 17th in Africa. But the Warriors appear to have lost the initiative after their failure to qualify for the Nations Cup finals set for Equatorial Guinea/ Gabon this month.
Zimbabwe tumbled a shocking 28 places after their participation at the Cecafa tournament in Tanzania where Zifa fielded a largely developmental side.
The Warriors are set to engage Burundi in a 2013 Nations Cup qualifier at the end of February and then kick-start their journey for the Brazil 2014 World Cup campaign in June with the opening two matches against Guinea and Mozambique.
Cote d’ Ivoire remain the best ranked African team despite dropping two places into 18th place on the world rankings with 889 points.
Ghana, who are one of the favourites at the 2012 Nations Cup finals, have gained three places into position 26 and are the second best African side.
Algeria have gone down five places on the global ratings but remain the third most powerful team in Africa with Egypt, who will not defend their Nations Cup title, in fourth place. The Lions of Teranga are fifth while Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Cape Verde and Tunisia complete the top 10 slots in Africa.
Sierra Leone, Morocco, Libya, Burkina Faso, Mali, Zambia, Guinea, Uganda and Gabon make up Africa’s best 20 teams.