Now ranked at joint 64th in the World, Wales lie behind Scotland who were beaten 4-0 at the Millennium Stadium earlier this year, Israel, Peru, Qatar, Honduras and Algeria to name a few.

The Rankings are used as a guide for FIFA when seeding teams for competitions such as the World Cup in 2006. England are the top seeds in group 6 followed by Poland, Austria and then Wales.

And despite not having played in the past month, Wales have also managed to slip down three places in the rankings from 61st.

Points are awarded based on international 'A' match results. The factors taken into consideration are:

1. Winning, drawing and losing
2. Number of goals
3. Home or away match
4. Importance of the match (multiplication factor)
5. Regional strength (multiplication factor)

Wales' opponents in a friendly next Wednesday, Latvia are currently lying at 56th in the rankings after surprisingly qualifying for the European Championships.

A positive result in Riga could therefore help to push the Red Dragons further up the rankings and closer to a more sensible slot for Sparky's boys.

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