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#11 Mauritania
Confederation - CAF
Current FIFA ranking - 101
This chiefly arid country is home to just about 4.3 million people, and not much has been achieved in terms of football relevance throughout their history.
All that has been changing however in recent years, as the national team has been making steady progress in little leaps, which saw the country make history by qualifying for the African Cup of Nations for the first time ever.
Mauritania has never participated at an international football tournament before, largely due to political upheavals which results in sanctions or withdrawals from tournament qualifiers, but they have benefited immensely from the relative political stability in recent years.
In the just concluded qualifiers for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, Mauritania impressively topped a group containing Burkina Faso and Angola, to seal their qualification to the tournament.
#10 Honduras
Confederation - CONCACAF
Current FIFA ranking - 63
Los Cotrachos have been on a steady rise in recent years, qualifying for two World Cups consecutively in 2010 and 2014 in which they failed to make it past the group stages.
They impressively came back from one goal down to defeat Mexico 2-1 in a 2014 World Cup qualifying match at The Azteca, which aided them massively in their qualification for Brazil 2014.
They finished 4th in the latest round of FIFA World Cup qualifiers for CONCACAF, but fell to a harrowing 3-1 aggregate defeat to Australia in the intercontinental play-offs.
They are arguably the 3rd strongest side in the North American region after regional heavyweights Mexico and USA.
With young players like Anthony Rochano, Bryan Rochez, Alberth Elis and Bryan Acosta coming through, the Hondurans can be sure that they would maintain or even surpass the standards set by players like Wilson Palacios, Maynor Figueroa and others in the past.
