Ghana would enter the African Cup of Nations as the 8th best footballing nation on the African continent, following Wednesday’s world rankings released by FIFA.

The Black Stars ended 2007 at the same position with seven CAN finalists ahead of Ghana on the ranking table.

Nigeria remains Africa’s best side as they sit comfortably at the top followed by Cameroon.

Two of Ghana’s group opponents for the Cup of Nations are placed within the top ten teams on the continents ranking table.

Ghana’s opening group opponents at CAN 2008, Guinea, are third while Morocco another group opponent of the Black Stars are placed 6th.

Namibia, also one of Ghana’s challengers in Group A are placed at 34th

Ghana, by virtue of being host of this year’s Africa Cup of Nations, were excluded from the continental qualifiers as they engaged in friendly matches in a year packed with continental championships and qualifying matches which recorded more points as compared to that of the friendly games.

On the world stage, Ghana did not record any movement as they still hang onto the 43rd position.

FIFA on Wednesday released the first ranking for the year which still has Argentina as the top team in the World followed by Brazil and Italy.

Forty international "A" matches were taken into account in compiling the first FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking for 2008, all friendly matches, of which 28 were played in the second half of December 2007.