SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – 2023/08/20: (L-R) Alexia Putellas, Jennifer Hermoso and Irene Paredes of Spain celebrate after winning the Women’s World Cup 2023 Final game between Spain and England at Accor Stadium. Final scores, Spain 1:0 England. (Photo by Julieta Ferrario/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The Spanish National Team has today become the first in a decade to top the FIFA World Rankings in both the men’s and women’s game.
Not since 2015 has one country held the number one position in the senior men’s and women’s game. The respective Spanish national teams have both assumed pole position in the charts following the release of the latest charts.
The women’s national team are the current world champions and holders of the UEFA Women’s Nations League. This summer, they also reached the final of the UEFA Women’s Euro but lost out to reigning European champions England in a dramatic penalty shoot-out.
BASEL, SWITZERLAND – JULY 27: England players applaud Aitana Bonmati of Spain as she makes her way forward to collect her player of the tournament award following during the UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 Final match between England and Spain at St. Jakob-Park on July 27, 2025 in Basel, Switzerland. (Photo by Jonathan Moscrop/Getty Images)
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Nonetheless, they remained unbeaten throughout the tournament in regulation time and these results, coupled with them finishing above England in the latest edition of the Nations League group stage, were sufficient for them to overhaul the reigning Olympic champions, the United States, at the top of the women’s world rankings.
The Spanish men’s team are the reigning European champions. Last summer, they became the first team in the competition’s history to win seven successive matches at a single tournament as they swept aside three former world champions – Germany, France and England – to win a record-breaking fourth title in Berlin’s Olympiastadion.
Those matches are part of a 27-match unbeaten streak under head coach Luis de la Fuente. Their last two results this month – emphatic World Cup qualification victories away to Bulgaria (0-3) and Turkey (0-6) – ensured they accumulated enough points to claim top spot in the men’s world rankings ahead of the World champions, Argentina.
It is the first time that the Spanish men’s team have topped the FIFA World Rankings since June 2014 when they were reigning world and double European champions at the end of a glittering six years of unprecedented success. However, they flopped in their defence of the FIFA World Cup that summer, going out after losing their first two games in Brazil.
The 2014 FIFA World Cup was eventually won by Germany who went into 2015 as the number one ranked team in the men’s game. There they joined the German women’s team who had won the 2003 and 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup and six successive UEFA Women’s Euro titles going back to 1997.
Before Spain, Germany were the first and only nation to previously hold the number one position in the men’s and women’s FIFA World Rankings. The only other two countries to top the FIFA Women’s World Rankings since it was introduced in 2003 are the United States and Sweden, neither of whom have ever led the men’s world rankings.
The Spanish men’s team will aim to win a second world title next year in the United States and also chase their own national record of 35 unbeaten matches set between November 2006 and June 2009. They are also in sight of the men’s world record of Italy who went undefeated for 37 games between October 2018 and September 2021.
Despite regaining their number one world ranking in August, the Spanish federation sacked their women’s team head coach Montse Tomé immediately after the UEFA women’s Euro. Unbeaten in their last eleven matches since losing to England at Wembley, they have set their sights on retaining their UEFA Women’s Nations League title this winter. In the final four, they will play a two leg tie against Sweden in October with the winners due to take on either France or Germany in the final.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/asifburhan/2025/09/18/spain-national-team-top-fifa-world-rankings-in-mens-and-womens-soccer/
