Warriors up to 66th

highest position in four years.
According to the rankings released yesterday Zimbabwe, who were ranked 74th in the world last month have eased into 66th.
This is their highest ranking since July 2006 when they were in the same position.

Then, the senior team was under the guidance of Charles Mhlauri and had taken part in the African Cup of Nations finals in Egypt in February of that year where they upstaged a World Cup bound Ghana 2-1.
After that they tumbled well out of the top 100 during a free-fall that began in 2007.
Skipper Method Mwanjali and his troops have been on a revival mission and successive wins over Mali and Liberia in Group A left them still in contention for a place at the 2012 Nations Cup finals to be co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

The Warriors will be hoping to top Group A and secure an automatic ticket to the 2012 Nations Cup finals should they beat Cape Verde in their last game and Liberia either hold or beat Mali in Monrovia.
They could also gatecrash into the Nations Cup party as one of the two best runners-up should the results in other group qualifiers go their way.

Crucially, for Zimbabwe on the global ratings, the Warriors have slightly bettered their average position of 71 since the Fifa rankings were created in 1993.
As they settled into position 74 last month, Mapeza said he was still not satisfied with their position maintaining that he believes the Warriors should be among the top 10 teams in Africa.
Mapeza hinted that his target was to see Zimbabwe storm into the top 50 and judging by the latest rankings, he remains on course to achieving that feat by year-end.

“I have felt always felt that that as Zimbabwe, we should be always be in the top 10 in Africa and we should always be in the top 50 on the world rankings and that is what we are working on to try and achieve,” Mapeza said.
The Warriors have now accumulated 490 points during the period under review and are rated as the 14th best team in Africa.

Zimbabwe’s latest climb was largely due to their 3-0 triumph over Liberia in a Group A qualifier at the National Sports Stadium.
Willard Katsande opened the scoring for the Warriors before Ovidy Karuru increased the lead in the first half.
Khama Billiat’s strike in the second period sealed victory for Zimbabwe.
Cote d’Ivoire remain the best team in Africa after the Elephants and are 16th in the world.

African champions Egypt, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Senegal, Nigeria and Cameron, South Africa, Morocco, and Tunisia complete the continent’s top 10.
There were no changes at the top of the global standings with World and European champions Spain sitting at the summit ahead of The Netherlands, Germany Uruguay, Portugal and Italy while five-time champions Brazil are now seventh and England are eighth.