New Delhi: Indian football’s dismal run on the international stage continued as the men’s senior national team slumped to 136th in the latest FIFA World Rankings — their lowest position since November 2016.

The new ranking, released on Friday, compounds the Blue Tigers’ woes as they find themselves out of contention for both the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2027 AFC Asian Cup.

Once seen as a team on the rise after their 2023 triumphs in the Intercontinental Cup, SAFF Championship, and Tri-Nation Series, India’s fortunes have sharply declined over the past year.

That period of promise — which saw them climb into the top 100 of the rankings — was followed by a disastrous AFC Asian Cup campaign in Qatar earlier this year, where they exited in the group stage without scoring a single goal in

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