Jumping two places from equal 11th (with Italy) to ninth, Australia have reached their highest ever World Ranking in football and capped off an exciting 14 months which included a second quarter-final appearance in consecutive World Cups and winning the AFC Women’s Asian Cup in May last year.

Besides the Westfield Matildas rise - the rankings, which came out on Friday in Zurich, saw little movement in the top 10 with the top five positions remaining unchanged in the standings.

England made the biggest rise moving from tenth to sixth while AFC opponents DPR Korea (12) moved out of the top 10 for the first time since the rankings began in 2003.

Japan’s incredible performance in winning the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 brought them much closer to the coveted number one spot currently held by the USA with further change to be greatly affected by the 2012 London Olympics and preceding qualifiers.

Australia’s road to the Olympics begins in September in Jinan, China, in a gruelling six team, 11-day round robin tournament with the top two teams progressing to the 2012 London Olympic Games.

FIFA Women's World Rankings;

1. USA

2. Germany

3. Brazil

4. Japan

5. Sweden

6. England

7. France

8. Canada

9. Australia

10. Norway