IRELAND HAVE MOVED up one place to 61st in the latest FIFA World Rankings.
Martin O’Neill’s side sit between DR Congo and Congo following their 1-1 draw against Germany in Gelsenkirchen.
Because Gibraltar are not ranked, Ireland didn’t get any boost from their 7-0 win against the minnows earlier this month.
Nonetheless, it is the third straight month of improvement for the Boys in Green.
The top three in the rankings are unchanged with world champions Germany still leading the way from Argentina and Colombia while Belgium and the Netherlands complete the top five.
England drop two places to 20th, Wales are in 34th, while Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland climb a massive 28 places to 43rd.
Of Ireland’s Euro 2016 rivals, Scotland are 37th, Poland are 44th and Georgia are 117th.
Drawin with world champions and we get bumped up 1 place haha them rankings are a shambles
Because FIFA rankings are calculated over 4 yrs, we will actually go down again in the new year because 2011 (our best year in the last 4) will no longer be counted….
Are Norn Iron, Scotland and Wales really that much ahead of us? I doubt it very much. The rankings are seriously flawed.
and only 28 places behind that powerhouse of world football …. The Cape Verde Islands
I’m assuming I got red thumbed by the 5 people who took Eddie Hobbs advice and bought a holiday home there!
The Elo rating system gives far more accurate results. We’re 29th in that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings
FIFA refuses to adopt it though, because, well, they’re FIFA.
The result of Mr. Blue Sky thinking.
We would have gone up further only FIFA don’t recognise Gibraltar as an official team so no ranking points for that match. We’re not as bad as 61st.
I refuse to believe Scotland are above us. The haven’t qualified for a tournament for 16 years and have frequently struggled to even make the playoffs in that time.
Pretty sure Gemany would trounce the too Congos at home too.Not a fair reflection and a seriously flawed system
Wonder when if any of the 25 or 30 teams ahead of us have qualified for any major tournament in the last 30 years… Rankings are a joke.
Northern Ireland have been above us for awhile which shows how rubbish these rankings can be. They have been nowhere near qualifying for anything since 86. We would hockey them
They’re in a crap group this time around so they should qualify.
I’d hate to see them qualify though
Um-Bongo!!!!!!
“Amy. Good. Gorilla.”
A Congo movie reference there for ye lads
61!!!!!!! Fantastic. John Delaney deserves a €100k wage increase