{"id":7974,"date":"2020-12-10T10:16:57","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T11:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=7974"},"modified":"2020-12-10T11:57:29","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T11:57:29","slug":"belgium-crowned-fifa-team-of-year-for-third-straight-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=7974","title":{"rendered":"Belgium crowned FIFA team of year for third straight time"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin: 5px 5% 10px 5%\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/arysports.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Belgium-Football-Tea.jpg\" width=\"742\" height=\"486\" title=\"\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Belgium were crowned FIFA\u2019s team of the year for the third straight time after retaining the top spot ahead of world champions France in the latest world rankings released on Thursday, soccer\u2019s world governing body said.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">While a total of 1,082 international games were played in 2019, the most since the rankings system was introduced in 1993, only 352 matches were held this year &#8212; the fewest since 1987 &#8212; due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">Roberto Martinez\u2019s Belgium won six of their eight games this year as they booked their place in next year\u2019s UEFA Nations League finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">The top four remained unchanged, with Brazil and England retaining their third and fourth ranking respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">Portugal moved up to fifth, while both Spain (sixth) and Argentina (seventh) improved two places compared to last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">Hungary (40th) were the most improved side in the rankings this year, having gained 44 points and 12 places to break into the top 50.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-paragraph-2Bgue ArticleBody-para-TD_9x\">Marco Rossi\u2019s side lost just once in eight matches to qualify for the Euro 2020 finals, which has been postponed until June-July next year due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/arysports.tv\/robert-lewandowski-wins-uefa-player-year-award\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Lewandowski wins UEFA Player of the Year award<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Belgium were crowned FIFA\u2019s team of the year for the third straight time after retaining the top spot ahead of world champions France in the <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=7974\" title=\"Belgium crowned FIFA team of year for third straight time\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7974"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7976,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7974\/revisions\/7976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}