Ghana Finish 2009 Three Places up

Ghana rounded up the year with an improvement on the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola World ranking table. The Black Stars rose by three places on the rankings to 34th from last month's 37th position. Ghana remain Africa's sixth best side behind Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria in that order. The four-time African champions gained 8 points, as they completed the year with 747 points. Fifa today released the December ranking table which showed little changes especially at the top as Spain were crowned Team of the Year with Brazil coming second and the Netherlands in third. The total number of matches played in 2009 increased to 834. This figure is higher than four years ago, but much lower than the pre-FIFA World Cup� years of 2001 and 1997.