Defending World Champions Italy regained the No.1 spot in the FIFA men's world soccer rankings released Wednesday after a victory in EURO 2008 qualifying match against Ukraine.

The man with the scoring touch was Antonio Di Natale, who scored twice in Italy’s 2-1 victory over Ukraine. Italy improved its position in group B standings as well and now has six wins, one loss and two draws.

Argentina held its ground and is still second in the FIFA rankings, while five-time World Champions Brazil went from first to third. Italy, Argentina and Brazil have a strong lead on the rest of the field.

After a good performance on their home ground at the 2006 World Cup and after dominating their Euro qualifying group, Germany climbed one spot and now is fourth followed by the Netherlands and France, which was ranked fourth in August. Spain is seventh followed by Portugal, England and Croatia.

After embarrassing France with a 1-0 win, Scotland reached its highest ranking ever. The Scots made it to the 14th spot after previously being ranked 23rd.

The key factors that FIFA considers when establishing the world ranking are based on points which are gained depending on the importance of each match, the strength of the opponent, the strength of the region and the number of matches per year that each team plays.

FIFA standings short history

When the FIFA ranking system was first introduced on December 1992, Germany were the top ranked team after a period of dominance in which they had reached the three previous FIFA World Cup finals and won one of them.

Prior to the 1994 FIFA World Cup held on US soil, Brazil took the lead in the rankings after winning eight and losing only one of nine qualification matches.

Italy then led for a while after their successful World Cup qualifying campaign, but not for long as the Germans climbed back on the No.1 spot.

After the Brazilians won the World Cup in 1994 they were ranked first and their large lead stood up for nearly seven years, until they were outshined by France, who captured both the 1998 FIFA World Cup and the 2000 European Football Championship.

Brazil regained its top position after winning the 2002 FIFA World Cup and held it until February 2007, when Italy returned to the top for the first time since 1993 following their 2006 FIFA World Cup win in Germany.

The Italians were world’s first just for one month as Argentina replaced them, reaching the top for the first time, but Italy regained its place in April. After winning the Copa America 2007 in July, Brazil returned to the top.