Singapore jumped four places to 155th spot in the latest Fifa rankings, updated on 15 September.
Despite winning only one game - against Myanmar in an international friendly in June 2016 - in their last their last five appearances, The Lions managed to move up the ladder. Their recent loss came against 126th-ranked Bahrain on 1 September. The visitors conceded three penalties at the Bahrain National Stadium to lose 3-1 to the hosts and hand coach Varadaraju Sundaramoorthy his third straight defeat since he took over from Bernd Stange in June.
Meanwhile, Malaysia have cut down Singapore's lead to three places after moving climbing nine spots. The 158th-ranked team has clinched two wins and a draw in its last five outings despite not playing at home. However, it suffered a humiliating 3-0 defeat against lowly-ranked Indonesia (181) on 6 September.
Singapore and Malaysia will face each other in an international friendly on 7 October before the two sides head into the 2016 AFF Suzuki Cup in November. While the former are placed in Group A along with Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, Harimau Malaysia will face Myanmar, Vietnam and winners of the qualification round in Group B.
Thailand dropped 15 places to 135th spot. Iran climbed two places and remained the top-ranked Asian nation at 37th spot.
Argentina remained the leader of the table and Belgium retained their second place. Germany and Colombia swapped places to become the third and fourth-ranked nations. Brazil leaped five places to fifth after their gold-medal winning performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Barcelona star Neymar led the hosts to their first ever Olympic gold medal as they defeated Germany on penalties in the final.
