IRELAND REMAIN IN their lowest ever ranking of 67th place in FIFA’s newly-released list.
The Boys in Green haven’t played since the last rankings were released.
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Spain continue to lead the way in an unchanged top 10. Vicente del Bosque’s world and European champions have now topped the rankings at the end of each of the last six calendar years following an unbeaten FIFA World Cup 2014 qualifying campaign that saw Spain collect 20 points from a possible 24.
Germany, Argentina, Colombia and Portugal complete the top five followed by Uruguay, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands and Brazil. Bosnia-Herzegovina are the only team on the up inside the top 30.
Fresh from reaching a first World Cup finals, Bosnia-Herzegovina are now 19th, up two places, meaning France and Mexico drop one place each to 20th and 21st respectively.
Ukraine hold the distinction of being the highest climbers this year after surging 29 places to 18th, although that is unlikely to temper the frustration at missing out on a World Cup place following play-off heartache at the hands of France last month.
Ireland manager Martin O’Neill is in Dublin for an end-of-year press conference today.
Still cant get over what a joke these rankings are, using us as an example, we have managed to drop 60 places in 18 months which despite some poor results cannot be justified in such a short space of time, the reality is that we would beat the majority of the teams outside the top 30 and should be matching a lot of the teams outside the top 15 at least. Thankfully it has no bearings on our seedings for the euros , just saw we are guaranteed 2nd seeds in a group where the top 2 go through and 3rd go into the play offs
Let’s call a spade a spade here. The Irish national team is incredibly average. Go back through the past few generations of teams and we always had a “world class” or at least “top class” player in the team, Roy and Robbie Keane as examples. The current line up just doesn’t have that star player, and is a combination of very average players. I know we all have pride in the team and always think we deserve to be ranked higher than we usually are, but we need to be realistic. When the likes of Paul McShane was a regular member of the team, who himself is a magician to fool someone into paying him to play football, it says a lot.
I wont disagree that they are average and to be fair McShane has never been a regular for Ireland, he only ever tends to be a squaf player. But some of the teams ahead of us are beyond rubbish!
I’d rate us in or around 50th at the moment nick, to be honest. We recently finished 4th in our WC group, and there were 9 groups in Europe. So at best we are 28-36th best team in Europe (based on real competitive results over last 2 years). Likes of Austria for example can rightly claim at this point, to be a better side than us, they beat us only 3 months ago in fairness. If we agree we are around 30th in Europe, then we are also a poorer side than brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Columbia, chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Venezuela even… Add Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, and arguably Honduras and panama, in Africa we are behind Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Algeria, Egypt, and very likely a few others we don’t know that much about. Japan, Korea, Iran, Australia, are all better sides than Ireland at the moment too. No doubt we are ranked a few places too low, but our results have been pathetic in the last 2 years. We are nowhere near the worlds top 30 on current form and nobody can argue otherwise. Have ye forgotten euro 2012? There were 15 decent- very good sides, and then Ireland, by far the weakest team in the comp. O’Neill has a big job to do I reckon.
How can we have a successful national team with such a unhealthy league, we’ve only ourselves to blame supporting Liverpool and co.
Sad really, in 2010-2011 season Irish supporters spent 145,000,000 on travelling to British stadia and that’s excluding merchandise. Imagine the potential for Irish clubs in europe if that money was spent at home.
They are surely, but how much better are we? During the Trappatoni era one would fall asleep watching us, with a mundane and boring midfield and not picking the type of players that would actually have us playing football!
The rankings are a bit silly, and based on stats that don’t really reflect true standings, but they are what they are, and until we have Xavi McCarthy, Cristiano Murphy, Lionel O’Connor and the rest of the imaginary top class players, we will remain to be poor, unfortunately. I’d give anything for a new generation of Irish footballers to produce one or two top class players, what a difference it would make!!
Chances are Brian Ireland will probably never produce another generation of top class players to come along together such as Keane duff dunne given oshea all within a period of 3 years yes we will come across the odd player but the influx of players from asia Africa Europe and south America is hindering the development of young irish and British players where once it was irish boys being chased by premier league clubs they now look further afield in my opinion there should be some rule to stop clubs sourcing players from outside the British Isles until their over 18 this would force the clubs to develop their youth systems and scouting networks thus improving the quality of young players produced here
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Still cant get over what a joke these rankings are, using us as an example, we have managed to drop 60 places in 18 months which despite some poor results cannot be justified in such a short space of time, the reality is that we would beat the majority of the teams outside the top 30 and should be matching a lot of the teams outside the top 15 at least. Thankfully it has no bearings on our seedings for the euros , just saw we are guaranteed 2nd seeds in a group where the top 2 go through and 3rd go into the play offs
They are a bit sh!tty Nick, but should only ever be used as a guide.
I mean the absolute hack of some teams above us!
Let’s call a spade a spade here. The Irish national team is incredibly average. Go back through the past few generations of teams and we always had a “world class” or at least “top class” player in the team, Roy and Robbie Keane as examples. The current line up just doesn’t have that star player, and is a combination of very average players. I know we all have pride in the team and always think we deserve to be ranked higher than we usually are, but we need to be realistic. When the likes of Paul McShane was a regular member of the team, who himself is a magician to fool someone into paying him to play football, it says a lot.
I wont disagree that they are average and to be fair McShane has never been a regular for Ireland, he only ever tends to be a squaf player. But some of the teams ahead of us are beyond rubbish!
Ehh Nick we were not 7th in the world 18 months ago.
Simple Mistake @Sir Charles I did mean 17th
I’d rate us in or around 50th at the moment nick, to be honest. We recently finished 4th in our WC group, and there were 9 groups in Europe. So at best we are 28-36th best team in Europe (based on real competitive results over last 2 years). Likes of Austria for example can rightly claim at this point, to be a better side than us, they beat us only 3 months ago in fairness. If we agree we are around 30th in Europe, then we are also a poorer side than brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Columbia, chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Venezuela even… Add Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, and arguably Honduras and panama, in Africa we are behind Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Algeria, Egypt, and very likely a few others we don’t know that much about. Japan, Korea, Iran, Australia, are all better sides than Ireland at the moment too. No doubt we are ranked a few places too low, but our results have been pathetic in the last 2 years. We are nowhere near the worlds top 30 on current form and nobody can argue otherwise. Have ye forgotten euro 2012? There were 15 decent- very good sides, and then Ireland, by far the weakest team in the comp. O’Neill has a big job to do I reckon.
How can we have a successful national team with such a unhealthy league, we’ve only ourselves to blame supporting Liverpool and co.
Sad really, in 2010-2011 season Irish supporters spent 145,000,000 on travelling to British stadia and that’s excluding merchandise. Imagine the potential for Irish clubs in europe if that money was spent at home.
Iran,Algeria,Honduras all better than Ireland? No.Just no.
Joe, as far as Euro 2012 goes just remember “You’re hardly gonna believe us. We’re just as bad as the Dutch!”
They are surely, but how much better are we? During the Trappatoni era one would fall asleep watching us, with a mundane and boring midfield and not picking the type of players that would actually have us playing football!
The rankings are a bit silly, and based on stats that don’t really reflect true standings, but they are what they are, and until we have Xavi McCarthy, Cristiano Murphy, Lionel O’Connor and the rest of the imaginary top class players, we will remain to be poor, unfortunately. I’d give anything for a new generation of Irish footballers to produce one or two top class players, what a difference it would make!!
Chances are Brian Ireland will probably never produce another generation of top class players to come along together such as Keane duff dunne given oshea all within a period of 3 years yes we will come across the odd player but the influx of players from asia Africa Europe and south America is hindering the development of young irish and British players where once it was irish boys being chased by premier league clubs they now look further afield in my opinion there should be some rule to stop clubs sourcing players from outside the British Isles until their over 18 this would force the clubs to develop their youth systems and scouting networks thus improving the quality of young players produced here
Ireland dropped 60 places in 18 months when were Ireland ranked 7th in the world nick
Ireland were ranked 6th in dec 1992 and aug1993
http://www.fifa.com/associations/association=irl/ranking/gender=m/
No comparison at all between the players we had then, compared to who we have now
Humbug FIFA (︺︹︺)