With the European Championship Group A and Group B tournaments set to start and the first international friendly game of the season scheduled for this Saturday, September 7 between the Belgian Barbarians and Team Ireland, the Irish Wolfhounds, let’s take a look at AFI’s ranking of the top European national teams.
All of these countries have played at least one game in the past five years and a few have been very active during that time span. Keep in mind though that these rankings could change drastically over the next few months.
Italy has been fairly active in the past four years with games against Switzerlandand France and is ranked as the eighth top team in Europe. Until 2017, Poland’s national team had been extremely busy and based on those results deserves the ninth place ranking we have given them. Team Serbia could possibly be placed a couple of spots higher, but the positions from 8 to 21 could be interchangeable depending on the year.
Ireland, in only their third year of existence, have also proven they can surprise after beating Belgium last year in a tight game. The Dutch Lions lost for the first time ever to Belgium last year and their national team program is undergoing some upheaval it seems. At the #22 spot, Slovakia was demolished in two games in 2018, by both Hungary and the Czech Republic.