ZURICH — Egypt made slight progress on Wednesday in the monthly FIFA ranking, moving up one spot to claim 13th place. The African champions, who played no games during the past month, are only one point behind 12th placed Greece. African World Cup finallists Nigeria and Cameroon also advanced to move into the top 20 with Egypt. Brazil reclaimed top spot from Spain in the FIFA rankings on Wednesday, returning to No. 1 for the seventh time since their inception in 1993 and ending the five-month reign of the European champions. Brazil has now held top spot for a total of 143 months. World Cup semifinallists Portugal went up a spot to sit third, swapping places with the Netherlands. Argentina rose two places to move to seventh place, while France dropped two spots to fall to 10th in the most notable changes in the top 10. Only five matches counted toward April rankings, meaning most of the changes due to the devaluation of past results. Egypt is the continent's top-ranked team at No. 13 but won't be going to South Africa after being beaten in a playoff by north African rival Algeria, which is ranked No. 31. Cameroon is up one place to No. 19 and Nigeria two to No. 20 to be the highest ranked African World Cup teams ahead of the first tournament to be staged on that continent. Cote d' Ivoire ranked No. 27, Ghana is No. 32 with South Africa at No. 90. Only North Korea at No. 106 is the only World Cup team currently ranked lower than the host.
