TEHRAN – Iran national football team have moved up in the FIFA World Ranking following the latest released on Thursday.

Team Melli moved up one spot into the top 20 as Asia's nine representatives get set to kick-off their challenge on the global stage. Japan remained unchanged at 18th. Korea Republic, meanwhile, are Asia's third highest ranked side at 25.

Australia (27th), Uzbekistan (50th), Qatar (56th), Iraq (57th), Saudi Arabia (61st) and Jordan (63rd) are the other Asian sides at the FIFA World Cup 2026.

Rounding up the top 10 for the continent were the United Arab Emirates at 68th while China PR moved up three spots to 91st. Outside the top 100, Lebanon (115th, down 7) and Bhutan (192nd, down 6) suffered the biggest drops.

The FIFA World Ranking will also serve as the tiebreaker, according to the Competition Regulations, to confirm the ranking within the group of two or more teams at the end of group stage of the FIFA World Cup 2026 and to determine which eight teams are the best third-placed sides to advance to the Round of 32 if multiple third-ranked teams are still tied after applying the criteria in steps 1 and 2.