PAPIC STARTS WITH IMPROVED RANK FOR SIHLANGU

MBABANE – This should motivate him in his quest to improve the senior national football team Sihlangu Semnikati.

The squad’s new coach, Kostadin Papic from Serbia has not had one training yet with Sihlangu until early next month but already, there is an improvement in the FIFA World Rankings for January. This is probably because other countries that had been active dropped points as Sihlangu was inactive.

The rankings were released by the world-governing soccer body on Wednesday and show Sihlangu at position 140 with 1 078 points out of 206 nations. This indicates that the squad has moved one place higher as two months ago, Sihlangu was placed 141.

This will certainly come as a positive for the coach and the players he will select for the last group match of the failed Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2019 Qualifiers against Tunisia on March 24 away. Sihlangu last won an official match back in 2016 when they beat guest nation DR Congo in a Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA) Cup encounter in Namibia under then Dutch coach Pieter De Jongh and later, interim coach Anthony Mdluli who was replaced by the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) in December as Papic was hired.

Mdluli was in charge when Sihlangu lost 2-1 to Niger in the AFCON Qualifier at Mavuso Sports Centre in November last year. Meanwhile, in Africa, Sihlangu is rated 39th out of 54 countries with Senegal in the lead.

The world number one is Belgium who won a bronze in last year’s FIFA World Cup in Russia with 1 727 points. Papic commented about the rankings.
“Any improvement in the rankings is good for us. We hope the team will improve under my leadership,” the former Orlando Pirates coach said.

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