The India men’s football team recorded their worst ranking in 9 years when they dropped 6 places and are currently placed at 133 in the latest FIFA rankings. The overall chart has world champions Argentina leading at 1, followed by Spain, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Croatia.
India has had a dismal time recently having lost both their last two international fixtures where they went down 0-2 to Thailand in a friendly and then were defeated 0-1 by a lower-ranked Hong Kong outfit in an Asian Cup qualifying round match. These two defeats both came in June leading to head coach Manolo Marquez leaving his role.
The federation’s acting general secretary, M Satyanarayan, told The Indian Express that Marquez and the federation had decided to ‘part ways earlier’, but the decision was finalised during an Executive Committee meeting earlier this month.
“Mutually, we have agreed to part. It was agreed upon between Manolo and those of us who deal with him on a regular basis and today we placed it in front of the committee,” said Satyanarayan.
He further said that the federation doesn’t have a potential candidate at the moment to replace Marquez. “We will take a couple of days to prepare to frame a job profile and then we will put it out. Let everyone apply and then we will take a call,” said Satyanarayan.
Under Marquez, the Indian team has just one win from their last 8 matches with the victory coming against Maldives back in March. In 2025, they have played 4, lost 2, won 1 and drawn 1. The results were so poor that India had to bring back their iconic striker Sunil Chhetri from his 2024 retirement but that has done little to change their fortunes.
The last time the Indian team had a worse ranking was in December 2016 when it was placed at 135. India’s best ever ranking was 94 in February 1996. The Indian team currently has 1113.22 rating points as against 1132.03 previously. It occupies the 24th place among 46 Asian countries led by Japan (17th rank).
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India’s next scheduled international match is an away fixture against Singapore in the third round of Asian Cup qualifiers in October.
(With agency inputs)
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