Malaysia climb to their highest FIFA world ranking in eight years

Malaysia improved their position from 154th to 147th in the world according to June 2022's FIFA World Rankings released on Thursday.

The latest ranking came on the back of a successful 2022 AFC Asian Cup qualifying campaign, which saw Kim Pan-gon's men qualify for the tournament on merit in 43 years thanks to wins over Turkmenistan and Bangladesh.

Ranking Harimau Malaya | 23 Jun 2022

Kemas kini terbaharu ranking FIFA hari ini, Malaysia di tangga 147 dunia, berjaya melonjak naik 7 tangga berbanding 154 pada kemas kini terdahulu, 31 Mac 2022.

* Kemas kini seterusnya 25 Ogos 2022#FAM #HarimauMalaya #FIFARanking pic.twitter.com/rVJtRHfCTt
— FA Malaysia (@FAM_Malaysia) June 23, 2022

The last time the Harimau Malaya were in the top 150 in the world, it was in May 2014 when they were ranked 145th.

A poor run of results during this eight-year period even saw them drop to their worst-ever ranking of 178th in March 2018.

With an improvement of seven places, Malaysia were one of the countries making the most progress on the latest rankings, bettered only by Kazakhstan (11 places) and Cuba (10).

Among Southeast Asian countries, they were behind Vietnam (97th), Thailand (111th), Philippines (134th) but ahead of Indonesia (155th), Myanmar (158th), Singapore (159th), Cambodia (174th), Laos (183rd), Brunei Darussalam (190th) and Timor-Leste (199th).