USA will end 2019 as they began it: on top of the FIFA/Coca-Cola Women's World Ranking. Brazil also head into 2020 in familiar territory, having made an immediate return to the top ten – this after dropping out in September for the first time in their history.

Having been rewarded for recent friendly wins over England (6th, down 1) and Canada (8th, down 1), the Brazilians (9th, up 2) are essentially the only notable climbers in the table’s upper echelons. Korea DPR (11th, down 2), with whom they swapped places, dropped down due to not having played since the ranking’s last edition.

The big moves took place further down the ladder, and reflected the fact that CAF and Concacaf’s Olympic qualifiers have produced the most significant recent upsets. In the latter region, St Kitts and Nevis’s (127th, up 7) stunning away victory in Trinidad and Tobago (72nd, down 11) provided the biggest points haul, and took the victors through to the final stage of Concacaf’s Tokyo 2020 preliminaries.

Shockwaves were also sent across women’s football by Kenya (133rd, up 10) beating traditional African powerhouses Ghana (60th, down 10) over two legs. The scale of that surprise is reflected in the change in both teams’ ranking, while Congo DR (108th, up 10) – who also enjoyed a double-digit rise – were rewarded for an equally unlikely home win over Cameroon.

This latest edition provides cause for celebration, too, for six countries who improve on their erstwhile record positions, with Belgium (17th, up 1), Chile (36th, up 1), Papua New Guinea (46th, up 1), Slovenia (50th, up 3), Panama (53rd, up 3) and Fiji (65th, up 3) all reaching new highs.

The next FIFA/Coca-Cola Women’s World Ranking will be published on 27 March 2020.