“During the international break, St Kitts and Nevis played a pair of friendlies against San Marino, who went in at 210th in the Fifa world rankings. Their next international will be a World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica, who are currently ranked 147 places higher than San Marino. I’d bet the farm on this not being the biggest gap in the rankings between consecutive international opponents: so what is?” asks Jack Hayward.
Stephan Wijnen gets the ball rolling from the recent Euro 2024 qualifiers. “The Netherlands played against France and Gibraltar on 24 and 27 March 2023. France were No 3 in the rankings at that time, with Gibraltar at No 200. That is a gap of 197 places. With 210 countries on the rankings that seems hard to beat.” From the same campaign, Carl O’Reilly points out the Republic of Ireland’s back-to-back games with Gibraltar (then No 201, on 19 June 2023) and France (No 2 on 7 September 2023), for a difference of 199 places.
