The Vietnamese women’s football team slipped six notches to 35th position in the latest women’s world ranking for the first quarter of 2016 announced by the International Football Federation (FIFA) on March 25.

Vietnam’s drop on the world ladder came as no surprise as the national team performed unsuccessfully at the third qualifying round for the 2016 Rio Olympics, which was held in Osaka, Japan earlier this month.

Playing against Asia’s strongest opponents, including Australia, Japan, China, the Republic of Korea and the Democratic Republic of Korea, proved to be an extremely tough challenge for the team coached by Mai Duc Chung.

Losing all five matches, Vietnam lost 30 points and now stands at 35th place in the world rankings with 1,620 points.

The team’s ranking in Asia was also considerably affected as they dropped one notch to seventh, behind Australia (fifth in the world, 2,014 points), Japan (seventh in the world, 1,983 points), the DPRK (ninth, 1,952 points), China (12th, 1,918 points), the ROK (17th, 1,837 points) and Thailand (32nd, 1,645 points).

The US remained firmly on top of the world with 2,174 points, followed by Germany with 2,117 points, France with 2,068 points and England with 2,033 points.