Asia finishes miserable year in football without single team in Fifa's top 50

Asia finished 2014 without a single team in the top 50 of the FIFA rankings, completing a miserable year for the continent in soccer terms. Iran were the Asian Football Confederation’s highest place team in the latest rankings published on Thursday, placed a modest 51, followed by Japan in 54th and South Korea in 69th. [caption id=“attachment_661500” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  India is languishing below 150th. AIFF[/caption] The rankings reflected a dreadful performance at the World Cup by Asian teams where Iran, South Korea, Australia and Japan all finished bottom of their groups and failed to win a game between them. World champions Germany completed the year top of the rankings, followed by Argentina and Colombia. Brazil, who finished fourth at the World Cup they hosted, were sixth and deposed world champions Spain ninth. Costa Rica were CONCACAF’S best-placed team in 16th and Algeria led the Africans in 18th place. FIFA said that 845 full internationals were played in 2014. Rankings (last month’s positions in brackets) 1. Germany (1) 2. Argentina (2) 3. Colombia (3) 4. Belgium (4) 5. Netherlands (5) 6. Brazil (6) 7= Portugal (7) France (7) 9. Spain (9) 10. Uruguay (10) Reuters