Summer warm-ups

Shortly after the conclusion of Euro 2012, Aruba hosted and won the lesser known ABCS Tournament by overcoming Curacao 3-2 and defeating Suriname 1-0 in the final. The tournament introduced Bonaire to the Football Rankings as they moved in to the 201^st spot after being thumped 8-0 and 9-2 by Suriname and Curacao respectively. Another noteworthy result in July was Guam’s 3-0 victory over Macau in the East Asian Championship qualifiers played on their home soil.

In August Brazil moved up into 2^nd place in the rankings with an impressive 3-0 win in Sweden while Argentina triumphed 3-1 away to Germany and Slovakia upset their Danish hosts by the same scoreline. Chile fell 3-0 in Ecuador while the U.S.A. silenced Mexico with a single goal at the Azteca and Croatia suffered a 4-2 home defeat to Switzerland. Syria’s political unrest seemed to have affected them on the pitch in the Nehru Cup as they lost 2-1 to hosts India and then to the Maldives whom they had twice demolished 12-0 in 1997.