PHP - Print position of user in ranking page - php

Question

I am making a ranking page where I am displaying the username by descending order. The names already appear in the correct order but I am having trouble showing the position on the user, like 1º place, 2º place...
This is my code (simplified):
I tried to do a for loop (in every place I could think of) and print the value of $i, but it doesn't seem to work, either $i has always the same value in every position or all of them in the same position.
<?php
for($i=0;$i<8;$i++){
while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$names =$row['username'];
?>
<li>
<a href="#">
<div class="container">
<div class="image">
<svg></svg>
</div>
<div class="content">
<h2><?php print $i; // print the positions ?></h2>
<p><?php print $names ?></p>
</div>
</div>
</a>
</li>
<?php }} ?>

Answer 1

If your SQL orders the users in the correct order, then instead of having a loop, just have a counter and increment it each time (using $i++)...
<?php
$i=1;
while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$names =$row['username'];
?>
<li>
<a href="#">
<div class="container">
<div class="image">
<svg></svg>
</div>
<div class="content">
<h2><?php print $i++; // print the positions ?></h2>
<p><?php print $names ?></p>
</div>
</div>
</a>
</li>
<?php } ?>

Answer 2

<?php
$counter=0;
while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$names =$row['username'];
$counter++;
?>
<li>
<a href="#">
<div class="container">
<div class="image">
<svg></svg>
</div>
<div class="content">
<h2><?php echo $counter; ?></h2>
<p><?php print $names ?></p>
</div>
</div>
</a>
</li>
<?php } ?>