 Capello has plenty of work to do to arrest England’s slide
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England have fallen one place to 15th in Fifa’s latest world rankings after being leapfrogged by Cameroon.
Fabio Capello’s men played only once during the latest ranking period, drawing 2-2 with the Czech Republic in a friendly at Wembley on 20 August.
European champions Spain retained their position at the top of the rankings for a third consecutive month.
Scotland remain 16th, while Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Wales are 32nd, 38th and 53rd, respectively.
Sixth-placed Brazil remain the highest-ranked non-European team, while Saudi Arabia are back in the top 50.
The major movers in the upper reaches, however, are Mexico, whose climb of eight places sees them overtake the US as the highest Concacaf team.
With European countries not due back in competitive action until the start of 2010 World Cup qualification this weekend, Spain stayed ahead of world champions Italy and Euro 2008 runners-up Germany.
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Italy climbed into second place in the rankings, based on national team performances over the past four years, despite being held to a 2-2 draw by Austria in another friendly.
Germany were 2-0 winners over Belgium last month but slipped down to third after losing points overall.
The only other change in the top positions saw Turkey climbing into the top 10 for the first time in four years at the expense of fellow Euro 2008 semi-finalists Russia.
Argentina were unable to benefit from their gold medal success at the Beijing Olympics because the men’s tournament, predominantly involving players aged under 23, is not including in the ranking system.
Fifa rankings (previous position in brackets):
1. (1) Spain
2. (3) Italy
3. (2) Germany
4. (4) Netherlands
5. (5) Croatia
6. (6) Brazil
7. (7) Argentina
8. (8) Czech Republic
9. (9) Portugal
10. (13) Turkey
11. (12) France
12. (10) Russia
13. (11) Romania
14. (15) Cameroon
15. (14) England
16 (16) Scotland
16 (17) Bulgaria
18. (18) Greece
19. (20) Israel
20. (19) Ghana
32. (32) Northern Ireland
38. (35) Republic of Ireland
53. (51) Wales
