New Delhi: India may have suffered embarrassing losses in its first two Asian Cup football qualifiers against Japan and Yemen, but the team managed to hold on to its 118th spot in the latest FIFA rankings.
India lost 0-6 to defending champions Japan in Yokohama and had to bear the ignominy of a 0-3 reversal against lower-ranked Yemen at home in the next match.
The results forced the All India Football Federation (AIFF) to "reorganise" the technical committee and look for a foreign coach in place of Syed Nayeemuddin.
India had climbed 17 places in the wake of the SAFF Cup triumph in Pakistan late last year but recent performances have taken much of the sheen off that feat.
The latest rankings find India tied at 118th spot with Central Asian nation Turkmenistan.
Incidentally, the positive result in Delhi has catapulted Yemen to 130th place, a rise of nine spots.
India remained 21st among Asian teams.
Brazil continued to head the overall rankings followed by Czech Republic and the Netherlands.
The United States climbed one spot to number five, just one point behind Argentina.
France were the biggest losers among the top 10 nations falling three places to number eight while Mexico also slipped one spot to number seven.
Japan continued to be the highest ranked Asian team at number 18 while Iran climbed three spots to be just one spot lower.
But the recent spate of poor results has not detered sports apparel major Nike, which announced on Friday the launch of its first grass root initiative for football in India - the Manchester United Premier Cup (MUPC) - India Final to be conducted in Kolkata from March 22 to March 26, 2006.
The initiative follows the recent announcement of Nike's partnership with the AIFF.
MUPC is an annual international Nike tournament conducted in association with Manchester United, one of the premier football clubs of the world.
The competition, which is open to footballers under the age of 15, has gathered global momentum over the past few years having attracted a cumulative participation of 642,000 players and 8,000 teams from over 40 countries such as England, France, Brazil, Germany and many more.
The tournament has witnessed past winners of champion clubs such as Barcelona, Corinthians, Manchester City, Sao Paulo to name a few.
The company has also signed up of star footballer and National Team Captain Baichung Bhutia as a Nike athlete.
(With inputs from PTI)
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