Russia soar in latest interim rankings

Russia's fine week in UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying not only boosted their hopes of reaching France – it also sent them soaring up the latest interim UEFA national team coefficient rankings, with the confirmed finalists now able to start calculating their possible seeding in December's draw.

FULL RANKINGS

The rankings after the remaining qualifiers will decide the seedings for the play-off draw on 18 October. The positions following those knockout ties in November will determine the pots for the finals draw on 12 December in Paris (though hosts France and, if they qualify, holders Spain will definitely be among the first tier of seeds regardless of coefficient).

Germany and Spain remain in the top two positions, with England – having qualified – still third. Of the other confirmed finalists, Austria are up three to tenth compared with June's rankings, the Czech Republic have risen four to 13th and Iceland are down one to 23rd due to the draw against 50th-placed Kazakhstan that booked their qualification.

Italy have boosted their seeding hopes should they qualify©Getty Images

Up into the top five, and provisionally top-seeded for the finals draw should they qualify, are Italy, just behind fourth-placed Portugal. The Netherlands drop four to eighth after losses to Iceland and Turkey put their finals hopes in peril. Belgium, meanwhile, are now sixth, a mere 0.002 points behind Italy, meaning the make-up of the pots, if all the leading contenders qualify, is still very much in doubt.

The big movers this month are Russia, who beat Sweden 1-0 and Liechtenstein 7-0 to jump to second in Group G and climb nine places to 11th in the coefficient rankings. In terms of ranking points, Finland picked up the most, adding 2.408 to their tally – which is now 21.376 – and rising up five to 34th after victories over Greece and the Faroe Islands kept them in contention in Group F.

Overall, compared with the rankings at the time of the UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying draw, Austria's position is 17 higher than prior to the current campaign. Iceland are up 15 from 38th and both Belgium and Poland have experienced double-digit improvements.

*The national team coefficients are calculated on a country's recent results. In the current rankings, 20% weighting is given to UEFA EURO 2012 results (qualifying/final tournament), and 40% each to the 2014 FIFA World Cup (qualifying/final tournament) and UEFA EURO 2016 (qualifying).