Bermuda’s national football team are ranked 134th in the latest world rankings, released by global governing body Fifa yesterday.

Despite the team’s inactivity of late, the Island has moved up one place over the last month, just behind Kyrgyzstan and a place ahead of Hong Kong.

In the Concacaf region, the Island is ranked 15th out of 35 countries, just one place behind Jamaica and ahead of El Salvador.

Argentina have returned to the top of the rankings after winning their first two qualifying matches for the 2010 World Cup.

The South Americans secured 2-0 victories away to Venezuela and at home to Chile earlier this month to climb above Brazil and Italy in the monthly standings.

Italy, who topped the rankings last month, fell to third despite two wins of their own.

The World Cup holders matched Argentina with two 2-0 wins in October, over South Africa and Georgia.

Italy gained less ranking points because of Georgia’s own low ranking and the fact that the game against South Africa was a friendly.

The Italians also dropped points under the rolling system used by FIFA to evaluate national teams, with a more heavily-weighted win over Ukraine in October 2006 being devalued.

England have dropped out of the top 10, slipping to 11th following a 2-1 defeat away to Russia in their penultimate qualifying match for next year’s European Championships.

Russia, who are now strongly placed to deny England a place at the Euro 2008 finals, have soared 10 places to 16th thanks purely to their October 7 win in Moscow.

Top 20 rankings

(Previous positions in brackets)

1. (2) Argentina

2. (3) Brazil

3. (1) Italy

4. (6) France

5. (4) Germany

6. (7) Spain

7. (5) Netherlands

8. (8) Portugal

9. (11) Czech Republic

10. (10) Croatia

11. (9) England

12. (12) Romania

13. (14) Scotland

14. (15) Greece

15. (13) Mexico

16. (26) Russia

17. (19) Uruguay

18. (18) U.S.

19. (23) Nigeria

20. (16) Poland